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AUTHOR: 


PRESCOTT,  HENRY  W 


TITLE: 


INTRODUCTION  TO 


STUDIES 


ROMAN 


PLACE: 


[CHICAGO] 


DA  TE : 


[1916-1919?] 


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PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


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MFINUFfiCTURED   TO   fillM   STPNDRRDS 
BY   nPPLIED   IMFIGE,     INC. 


AN    INTRODUCTION  TO  STUDIES    IN    ROMAN 

COMEDY 

THE   INTERPRETATION   OF  ROMAN   COMEDY 
THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  HELLENISTIC  COMEDY 


HENRY  W.  PRESCOTT 


Reprinted  for  private  circulation  from 

Classical  Philology,  Vol.  XI,  No.  2,  April  1916;  Vol.  XII,  No.  4,  October  191 7; 

Vol.  XIH,  No.  2,  April  1918;  Vol.  XIV,  No.  2,  April  1919 


REPRINTED  FROM 


classical  Philology 


Volume  XI 


April  igi6 


Number  2 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  ROMAN  COMEDY 

By  Henry  W.  Prescott 

By  way  of  introduction  to  various  studies  of  technique  in  Roman 
comedy  I  find  it  convenient  to  state  brieflyj  with  some  illustrative 
examples,  the  dominant  tendencies,  as  I  see  them,  in  the  higher 
criticism  of  Plautus  and  Terence,  to  suggest  the  weakness  of  modern 
method,  and  to  indicate  the  possibiUty  of  a  different  point  of  view 
and  of  safer  courses  of  procedure.  In  such  an  introduction  suggestion 
rather  than  demonstration,  exposition  rather  than  extended  argu- 
ment, are  the  hmited  aims  of  the  paper;  and  I  hope  that  the  brevity 
desirable  in  prolegomena  will  not  be  mistaken  for  dogmatic  assertion. 

Modern  criticism  establishes  a  norm  as  characteristic  of  Hellenis- 
tic comedy,  and  explains  deviations  from  that  norm  in  the  Roman 
adaptations  by  certain  known  facts  relating  to  the  tradition  of  our 
Latin  texts  and  the  methods  of  composition  followed  by  the  Roman 
playwrights.  The  weakness  of  modern  method  may  best  be  indicated 
by  a  consideration  of  the  abnormal  features— abnormal  from  the 
standpoint  of  modern  critics— in  several  plays  of  Plautus;  for  this 
purpose  I  have  chosen  the  Rudens,  the  Persa,  and  the  Stichus.  It  is 
not  my  purpose  to  prove  that  the  Rudens  and  the  Stichus  are  not 
contaminated,  or  that  the  Persa  is  not  from  a  Greek  original  of  the 
Middle  rather  than  of  the  New  Greek  comedy;  I  wish  simply  to  illus- 
trate from  these  plays  how  certain  features  of  dramatic  technique 
are  handled  by  modern  critics  without  due  regard  to  the  demands  of 

[Classical  Philology  XI,  April,  1916]       125 


126 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


the  audience  in  the  theater,  to  the  limitations  set  by  the  scenic  back- 
ground and  the  traditions  of  the  Kterary  type,  to  the  restrictions  which 
hamper  the  poet  once  he  has  sketched  the  main  outline  of  his  plot. 
In  describing,  therefore,  the  supposed  abnormal  features  I  shall 
briefly  suggest  the  internal  or  external  necessity  which,  in  my  opinion, 
made  them  inevitable  in  the  Greek  original;  in  this  case  they  may 
not  be  explained  as  Roman  defects  due  to  contamination  or  retracta- 
tion ;  and  they  conflict  with  a  theory  of  artistic  regularity  in  Hellen- 
istic comedy  which  modern  critics  believe  to  have  been  induced 
through  the  influence  of  Euripides. 

The  Rudens  of  Plautus  is  not  conspicuously  unlike  other  Roman 
comedies.  It  is,  however,  a  diffuse  play.  Some  of  this  diffuseness, 
as  the  licet-  and  censeo-scenes  near  the  end  of  the  play  perhaps 
attest,  may  be  Plautus'  contribution.  But  it  is  equally  clear  that 
no  small  amount  of  it  is  inherent  in  the  Greek  plot.  A  girl  and  her 
maid,  carried  off  by  a  slave-dealer  and  his  accomplice,  are  ship- 
wrecked; the  discovery  of  this  girl's  status  as  a  free  citizen  must  be 
established  by  tokens  which  she  has  lost  in  the  storm  at  sea;  these 
tokens  must  be  found  at  a  relatively  late  stage  in  the  action  by  a 
neutral  or  friendly  person,  or  group  of  persons;  of  those  shipwrecked 
with  her  none  is  friendly  save  the  maidservant,  and  as  this  servant 
is  needed  for  various  dramatic  and  economic  effects  in  the  earlier 
scenes  of  the  play,  before  the  recognition  can  take  place,  the  drama- 
tist may  not  use  her  to  bring  about  the  recovery  of  the  tokens.  It 
follows  inevitably  that  an  outside  person,  apart  from  the  victims  of 
the  shipwreck,  must  accomplish  the  recovery;  for  this  purpose  a 
fisherman,  Gripus,  is  invented,  whose  activity  in  the  Roman  play  is 
limited  to  the  latter  half  of  the  comedy.  In  the  earlier  action  another 
slave,  Sceparnio,  served  to  connect  minor  chapters,  to  furnish  some 
amusing  effects;  he  now  disappears;  his  function  is  completed; 
he  was  not  available  for  the  discovery  of  the  tokens;  Gripus,  essen- 
tial to  the  recognition  theme,  becomes  prominent  in  the  last  two  acts 
of  the  comedy. 

Under  these  compelling  circumstances  a  modern  dramatist  might 
make  Gripus,  if  not  thoroughly  organic,  at  least  less  mechanically 
related  to  the  action  than  the  fisherman  is  in  the  Roman  play.  A 
playwright  today,  for  example,  might  put  in  the  mouth  of  Daemones, 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


127 


the  master  of  Gripus,  in  some  of  the  opening  scenes  of  the  play,  a 
casual  remark  to  the  effect  that  Gripus  has  gone  out  fishing,  and 
that  he  wonders  how  the  slave  has  fared  during  the  storm;  thus 
the  audience  would  be  duly  prepared  for  the  advent  of  the  fisherman 
in  later  scenes.  But  in  the  extant  play  this  casual  remark,  instead 
of  being  introduced  early  in  the  action  is  very  mechanically  brought  in 
at  vss.  897  ff.  and  immediately  before  Gripus'  entrance;  Daemones 
is  very  obviously  lugged  on  the  stage  and  haled  off  it  (vss.  892-905) 
merely  to  provide  this  introduction  of  Gripus,  with  whom  the  previ- 
ous action  has  not  made  the  audience  acquainted. 

Now  the  removal  of  Sceparnio  from  the  action,  and  the  mechanical 
appending  of  Gripus  for  the  purposes  of  the  recognition  theme,  may 
well  suggest  that  Plautus  has  combined  parts  of  two  distinct  Greek 
plays  ;^  and  vss.  892-905,  in  which  Daemones  is  so  inartistically 
brought  on  and  removed,  may  be  Plautus'  clumsy  gluing  of  alien 
elements.  But  before  any  such  supposition  may  become  established 
fact  or  well-reasoned  theory  one  must  reckon  with  the  situation  that 
confronted  the  author  of  the  Greek  original;  even  the  Greek  author 
of  the  first  three  acts  of  the  present  play  had  to  invent  a  character 
corresponding  to  Gripus.  Once  invented,  it  was  diflficult,  in  the 
nature  of  the  plot,  to  make  him  an  organic  character;  his  connection 
with  the  main  action,  when  he  was  first  introduced,  had  to  be  loose; 
the  mechanical  introduction  of  Gripus  in  vss.  892-905  is  indispensable 
to  the  needs  of  the  audience,  Greek  as  well  as  Roman,  and,  so  far  as 
it  is  mechanical,  accords  with  frequent  practice  observable  as  early 
as  Greek  tragedy  and  Aristophanes.^    Broadly  stated,  one  is  not 

^  So  Miss  Coulter,  Class.  Phil.,  VIII,  57  ff.,  and  cf.  the  references  ibid.,  57,  n.  4. 

'  The  mechanical  introduction  of  characters  appears  in  the  formulaic  Kal  fir^v  bpQ) 
(commoner  in  tragedy  than  in  Aristophanes)  and  ecce  ....  video  with  great  frequency . 
Apart  from  the  variations  of  this  formula,  note  the  obvious  self-introduction  of  the 
parasite  in  Bacch.  573,  and  the  patent  address  to  the  audience  in  Poen.  203-4,  where 
both  the  young  women  are  known  to  the  characters  on  the  stage  and  haec  est  prior 
carefully  distinguishes  the  one  from  the  other  for  the  benefit  of  the  spectators.  The 
phraseology  of  introduction  has  been  considered  by  W.  Koch,  De  personarum  comicarum 
introductione,  Breslau,  1914;  for  incidental  comment  cf.  Fraenkel,  De  media  et  nova 
comoedia  qu.  sel.,  Gottingen,  1912,  p.  59;  Graeber,  De  poet.  Attic,  arte  scaenica, 
Gottingen,  1911,  p.  19;  Flickinger,  Class.  Jour.,  X,  207  ff.  A  study  of  introductions, 
as  a  phase  of  the  technique  of  comedy,  will  shortly  appear,  I  hope,  by  Mr.  D.  M.  Key, 
of  the  University  of  Chicago.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  postponement  of  the  intro- 
duction in  the  Rvdens  to  vss.  897  ff.  immediately  before  Gripus'  appearance  may  be  a 
concession  to  the  needs  of  an  audience  that  is  not  provided  with  playbills. 


128 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


likely  to  appreciate  properly  these  supposedly  abnormal  features  of 
the  Rudens  until  he  has  fully  considered  in  all  the  Latin  plays,  in 
the  remains  of  Greek  comedy,  even  in  Greek  tragedy,  the  conditions 
under  which  inorganic  or  loosely  attached  characters  are  employed 
in  the  drama,  and  the  means  by  which  such  characters  are  related 
to  the  action.  A  study  of  inorganic  roles  would  reveal  differences 
in  degree,  broad  resemblance  in  kind;  possibly  a  difference  of  degree 
in  Gripus'  case  might  confirm  a  theory  of  contamination;  but  safe 
conclusions  can  be  based  only  upon  a  comprehensive  study  of  the 
entire  phenomenon,  not  upon  casual  observation  of  Gripus'  role 

in  the  Rudens. 

The  Persa  of  Plautus  is  more  obviously  irregular  than  the  Rudens. 
Operating  with  the  same  factors,  largely,  as  do  the  students  of  con- 
tamination and  retractation,  but  employing  them  to  bring  the 
date  of  the  Greek  original  as  near  as  possible  to  the  time  of  Aristoph- 
anes and  Euripides,  Wilamowitz^  has  proved  to  the  satisfaction 
of  most  modern  students  of  comedy  that  the  Greek  model  was  a  play 
of  the  Middle,  not  of  the  New,  period.  His  argument  from  historical 
allusions  is  not  relevant  to  my  purpose;  only  his  attitude  toward 
supposed  peculiarities  of  structure  and  character-treatment  illus- 
trates the  tendencies  of  modern  method  which  I  am  examining. 

The  play  is  prunarily  a  slaves'  play:  a  slave,  plenipotentiary  in 
his  master's  absence,  intrigues  against  a  slave-dealer;  the  slave- 
dealer  owns  the  slave's  sweetheart,  a  slave-girl;  a  second  slave  co- 
operates with  the  lover;  a  third  slave,  Paegnium,  a  puer  delicatus,  is 
loosely  attached  to  the  action  to  provide  the  comic  byplay  which 
reheves  the  general  seriousness  of  the  plot  of  intrigue.  This  general 
atmosphere  of  slaves  temporarily  liberated  for  the  free  exercise  of 
their  jovial  and  maUcious  propensities  is  very  happily  accentuated 
and  preserved  in  the  carousal  which  as  an  afterpiece  follows  the  plot 
of  intrigue  elaborated  in  the  first  four  acts;  at  this  carousal  the  three 
slaves  and  the  slave-girl  sweetheart  join  in  a  triumphant  convivial 
celebration  in  which  the  utter  discomfiture  of  the  slave-dealer  reaches 

its  culmination. 

But  the  demands  of  the  intrigue  require  two  free  citizens— a 
parasite  and  his  daughter;    for  the  plot  involves  the  palming  off 

1  De  tribus  carminibus  latinis  (Index  lect.,  Gottingen,  1893-94),  13  ff. 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


129 


upon  the  slave-dealer  of  a  free  woman  as  a  slave.  This  pseudo-slave 
is  to  be  ultimately  claimed  by  her  father,  and  the  slave-dealer  thereby 
put  in  jeopardy.  The  dramatist,  in  choosing  a  parasite  and  his 
daughter,  has  selected  characters  from  the  ver>"  lowest  status  of  free 
citizenship,  to  that  extent  not  entirely  out  of  harmony  with  the 
servile  status  of  the  main  characters,  but  as  free  citizens  mildly 
disturbing  the  unity  of  atmosphere.  This  disturbing  element  is 
removed  as  soon  as  its  necessary  function  in  the  intrigue  is  performed ; 
they  are  needed  only  for  the  intrigue,  and  their  activity  accordingly 
ceases  when  the  trick  is  played. 

This  mere  statement  of  the  poet's  design,  so  far  as  realization  may 
reveal  the  underlying  purpose,  should,  in  my  opinion,  meet  sufficiently 
the  objections  of  many  modern  critics.^  They  are  disposed  to  insist 
that  the  parasite,  who  has  been  lured  into  active  co-operation  by 
the  mention  of  appetizing  foods  and  promises  of  perpetual  feasts 
(vss.  140,  329  ff.),  should  be  present  at  the  concluding  carousal. 
But  clearly  in  the  Persa,  as  in  the  carousal  at  the  end  of  the  Stichus, 
the  presence  of  a  free  citizen  would  disturb  the  unity  of  a  celebration 
designed  to  commemorate  the  emancipation,  for  the  moment,  of  a 
group  of  slaves.  The  ancient  audience  was  left  to  imagine  that 
the  parasite  obtained  his  promised  reward  without  dramatic  realiza- 
tion of  the  feast  that  he  had  earned.^ 


^  Wilamowitz,  op.  cit.,  20  fif. ;  Meyer,  "  De  Plauti  Persa,'"  Comm.  phil.  lenenses, 
VIII,  fasc.  1,  179  ff.;  Miss  Coulter,  " Retractatio  in  the  Ambrosian  and  Palatine  Re- 
censions of  Plautus,"  Bryn  Mawr  College  Monographs,  X,  39  ff. 

»  Economic  factors  are  often  disregarded  in  modern  criticism :  the  addition  of  the 
parasite  to  the  final  carousal  would,  perhaps,  increase  the  number  of  actors  required 
for  the  production  of  the  pla5\  Wilamowitz'  distribution  of  roles  {op.  cit.,  25  ff.) 
is  not  flawless:  he  has  not  provided  for  Sophoclidisca;  and  his  division  rests  on  the 
tacit  presupposition  that  a  vacant  stage  often  marks  an  essential  pause  in  Roman 
comedy  (against  which  cf.  Conrad,  The  Technique  of  Continuous  Action  in  Roman 
Comedy,  1915);  if  the  action  is  continuous  at  vss.  52  and  328,  Sagaristio  and  Saturio 
may  not  be  played  by  the  same  actor.  The  last  two  scenes  show  that  at  least  five 
actors  were  required;  the  general  structure  indicates  that  the  three  heavy  roles  of 
Toxilus,  Dordalus,  and  Sagaristio  each  required  a  single  actor;  there  remain  five  roles, 
four  of  which  are  female  or  quasi-female  (Paegnium)  roles,  that  might  be  distributed 
among  two  or  three  actors;  the  same  actor  might  play  Paegnium  and  the  virgo:  another 
actor  might  play  Lemniselenis  and  Sophoclidisca  (for,  even  if  vs.  179  be  assigned  to  the 
former,  she  need  not  have  appeared  on  the  stage) ;  the  only  question  is  whether  the 
parasite  fell  to  a  sixth  actor  (in  which  case  he  might  have  appeared  in  the  carousal 
without  increasing  the  number  of  the  troupe),  or  was  added  to  the  parts  played  by  the 
actor  who  carried  the  roles  of  Lemniselenis  and  Sophoclidisca.    Against  the  second 


130 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


Wilamowitz  is  too  familiar  with  the  general  weakness  of  comedy 
in  respect  to  motivation^  to  lay  much  stress  upon  the  defects  in  this 
regard  of  the  amusing  scenes  in  which  the  slave-boy,  Paegnium, 
early  in  the  play,  is  brought  on  the  stage  and  elaborately  presented 
to  us  in  stationary  lyrical  scenes.  The  errands  upon  which  Paegnium 
and  the  slave-woman,  Sophoclidisca,  are  sent  are  quite  futile,  and 
serve  simply  as  weak  excuses  for  getting  them  upon  the  stage  to  amuse 
the  audience  and  to  lessen  the  seriousness  of  the  more  essential 
action. 

Yet  the  general  indifference  of  the  comic  poets  to  motivation  does 
not  prevent  Wilamowitz  and  others^  from  finding  serious  defects  in 
another  shorter  passage  of  the  play  in  which  the  weakness  of  motiva- 
tion is  the  most  significant  feature  (as  in  the  passage  of  the  RudenSj 
vss.  892-905,  discussed  above).  The  intrigue  in  the  Persa  is  com- 
pleted in  two  chapters:  in  one,  the  arch-intriguer  purchases  his 
sweetheart  from  the  slave-dealer  with  money  borrowed  from  his 
fellow-slave;  in  the  other  (incidentally,  to  repay  the  borrowed  money) 
he  tricks  the  slave-dealer  into  purchasing  the  parasite's  daughter,  a 
free  woman,  but  represented  to  be  a  Persian  captive.  The  dramatic 
effect  is  enhanced  by  carrying  out  both  chapters  in  uninterrupted  suc- 
cession, and  the  arch-intriguer  remains  on  the  stage  dominating  the 
situation  (as,  to  a  greater  degree,  in  the  intrigue  of  the  Mostellaria) 
through  both  chapters  (vss.  449-737).  The  parasite,  who  is  needed 
only  for  the  denouement  of  the  second  chapter,  in  which  he  must 
appear  and  claim  his  daughter  as  a  free  citizen,  is  introduced  to  us 
before  the  beginning  of  the  entire  intrigue  (vss.  329  ff.)  and  withdraws 
to  the  house  of  the  arch-intriguer  (vs.  399),  where  he  remains  in  hiding 

alternative  stands  the  lack  of  harmony  between  the  roles  of  the  parasite  and  the  two 
women;  in  favor  of  it,  stands  the  resultant  economy  and  the  structure  of  the  play  at 
vss.  305,  329,  752,  763;  it  may  be  that  Sophoclidisca  leaves  at  vs.  305  to  assume  the 
role  of  the  parasite  at  vs.  329,  and  that  the  parasite  leaves  at  vs.  752  to  appear  aa 
Lemniselenis  at  vs.  763. 

^  Op.  cit.,  22:  "et  intrant  et  exeunt  personae  plerumque  soli  poetae  arbitrio  obse- 
cutae,  sin  vero  causam  abeundi  proferunt,  ipso  silentio  peior  est  ....,"  and  in  his 
commentary  on  Euripides'  Herakles,  vs.  701:  "es  gehdrt  zum  Stile  des  griechischen 
Schauspiels,  die  Motivirung  des  Gleichgiiltigen  zu  verschmiihen,  und  zum  Wesen  des 
antiken  Publikums,  Adiaphora  als  solche  hinzunehmen  und  sich  bei  ihnen  nicht 
aufzuhalten."  Yet  these  interesting  generalizations  should  be  tested  in  careful  studies 
of  motivation  in  tragedy  and  comedy;   cf.  below,  p.  144,  n.  1. 

'Wilamowitz,  op.  ci7.,  21;  Goetz,  Acta  soc.  phil.  Lips.,  VI,  300  fif.;  Meyer,  op. 
cit.,  172  ff.;    Miss  Coulter,  Retractatio  in  ...  ,  Plautus,  38. 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


131 


during  the  whole  of  the  first  chapter  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
second.  Thus  for  over  300  verses  (vss.  399-726)  he  is  entirely  lost 
to  view,  and  the  scenic  background,  if  he  is  within  the  house,  pro- 
vides no  means  for  his  observing  the  earlier  progress  of  the  intrigue 
and  knowing  when  the  time  for  his  own  activity  approaches.  The 
audience,  too,  may  well  have  lost  track  of  him  in  such  a  long  interval ; 
certainly  he  himself  must  in  some  way  be  informed  that  the  time  for 
his  arrival  on  the  scene  has  come.  With  this  dramatic  problem  before 
him  the  poet — and  I  must  insist  that  the  Greek  poet  confronted  the 
same  problem — devised  the  very  mechanical  action  at  vss.  711-30. 
The  slave-dealer  must  be  removed  while  the  parasite  is  brought  on 
and  admonished;  unable  to  remove  the  slave-dealer  artistically, 
now  that  the  threads  of  the  action  are  pretty  well  spun  out,  the 
poet  simply  drags  him  off  at  vs.  723,  leaving  the  parasite's  daughter 
on  the  stage  (naturally  the  slave-dealer  would  have  taken  her  with  him 
into  the  house)  because  she  is  needed  in  the  subsequent  action,  and 
as  mechanically  dragging  him  back  again  at  vs.  731  (so  Daemones 
was  dragged  on  and  off  at  Rudens  vss.  892-905).  These  much- 
discussed  verses  (vss.  711-30),  therefore,  are  the  dramatist's  way  of 
solving  his  practical  difficulties;  and  those  difficulties  inhered  in  the 
Greek  plot.  Yet  modern  critics  are  so  impressed  by  the  obvious 
mechanism  and  general  weakness  of  technique  that  they  ascribe 
the  supposed  abnormahties  to  the  botchwork  of  a  later  retractor,  or 
insist  that  Plautus  must  have  made  over,  at  this  point  in  the  play, 
a  Greek  plot  which,  in  its  legal  aspects,  conflicted  with  Roman  pro- 
cedure.^ My  own  view  is  that  the  technique,  however  awkward,  is 
explained  so  soon  as  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  poet  and  the 
audience,  and  the  Greek  as  well  as  Roman  poet  and  audience. 


^A  legal  expert  (Partsch,  Hermes,  45,  613)  is  not  convinced  by  Wilamowitz' 
argument  in  this  connection,  and  a  layman  finds  it  hard  to  believe  that  Dordalus  is 
technically  guilty  under  the  circumstances.  Is  not  the  slave-dealer  in  jeopardy  more 
because  of  a  general  prejudice  against  his  class  than  because  of  any  technical  liability  ? 
As  my  colleague.  Professor  Bonner,  suggests,  without  being  technically  guilty  Dordalus 
would  be  embarrassed  by  legal  action,  and  that  situation  suffices  for  dramatic  purposes 
and  makes  unnecessary  the  precise  legal  procedure  which  Wilamowitz  posits  as  deter- 
mining the  action  in  the  Greek  original.  The  fact  that  vss.  727-28  repeat  vss.  467-68 
is  a  textual  problem;  in  both  places  an  accomplice  is  warned  of  his  approaching  activity 
in  the  intrigue,  and  both  couplets  may  illustrate  only  Plautus'  fondness  for  repeating 
himself  (cf.  Kellermann,  *'Z>e  Plauto  aui  imitcUore,''  Comm.  phil.  Ienense8,Yll,  fasc.  1, 
155,  note  on  Persa  2). 


132 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


'.    The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


133 


Rarely  does  modern  criticism  find  in  the  portrayal  of  character 
any  idiosyncrasy;  but  the  peculiarities  of  the  virgo  in  the  Persa  are 
used  to  support  a  view  that  the  Greek  original  was  specially  exposed 
to  the  influence  of  the  tragic  poet,  Euripides;  the  argument  illus- 
trates the  strength,  in  the  minds  of  modern  critics,  of  what  I  shall  in 
later  discussion  call  the  presupposition  underlying  the  modern 
interpretation  of  Hellenistic  and  Roman  comedy. 

The  characters  of  Roman  comedy  consist  of  stereotyped  repre- 
sentatives of  various  trades  and  professions  and  slightly  individualized 
domestic  characters;  they  are  in  general  reaUstic,  but  the  realism 
of  the  portraiture  is  often  modified  under  the  stress  of  literary 
tradition  or  by  immediate  dramatic  convenience.  The  choice  of  char- 
acters is  determined  by  the  inner  necessities  of  the  plot;  in  some 
instances  external  conditions  seriously  affect  the  selection.  So,  for 
example,  the  social  conventions  of  Athenian  life,  combined  with  the 
rigidity  of  the  scenic  setting,  which  put  the  action  of  the  plays  in  a 
public  street  and  made  interior  scenes  difficult,  tend  to  eliminate  from 
the  comedies  the  respectable  unmarried  woman.  The  Persa  is 
unique  in  its  presentation  of  a  virgo  in  an  active  role. 

Now  this  abnormal  feature  might  well  excite  surprise,  and  lead 
any  reader  to  recall  the  heroines  of  Euripidean  tragedy,  were  it  not 
that  the  unique  character  is  immediately  explained  by  the  conditions 
of  the  plot.  The  plot  of  the  Persa,  as  we  have  seen,  requires  a  free  and 
unmarried  woman  who  shall  be  palmed  off  as  a  slave;  no  woman  of 
the  higher  grades  of  Athenian  society  would  lend  herself  to  such  a 
purpose;  the  dramatist  chooses  one  from  the  dregs  of  society,  and 
even  she  demurs  to  the  task  imposed  upon  her.  Under  these 
circumstances,  if  the  portrayal  of  character  in  comedy  is  primarily 
realistic,  we  should  certainly  expect  to  find  in  the  parasite's  daughter 
a  person  totally  unlike  any  other  woman  in  the  pages  of  comedy. 
What  parasites'  daughters  were  in  contemporary  society  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing,  but  the  general  conditions  of  life  and  social  custom 
as  they  affected  women  in  the  status  of  free  citizenship  would  point 
to  a  limited  horizon,  a  very  narrow  outlook  upon  life  and  its  problems, 
especially  before  marriage.^ 

1  Cf.  Ferguson,  Hellenistic  Athens,  71  ff.,  for  the  difference  between  the  cities  of 
Greece  proper  and  those  of  the  outside  Greek  world  in  this  respect. 


In  noting  in  some  detail  the  talk  and  behavior  of  the  virgo  we 
should  remember  that  in  the  second  of  the  two  scenes  in  which  she 
appears  she  has  been  taught  a  part  (vss.  379-81).  Such  inconsist- 
ency as  may  be  apparent  between  her  seriousness  in  the  first  scene 
and  her  cleverness  and  apt  repartee  in  the  second  is  thereby  ex- 
plained: "necessitate  me  mala  ut  fiam  facis"  (vs.  382);  even  apart 
from  this  reasonable  explanation  of  the  slight  contradiction,  any 
dramatist  in  Hellenistic  comedy  is  prone  to  abandon  consistency  of 
character  if  the  immediate  needs  of  the  action  are  consequently 
advanced.^ 

In  the  first  scene  (vss.  329  ff.),  in  language  and  manner  strange 
to  the  reader  of  New  comedy,  who  has  become  famiUar  largely  with 
mercenary  courtesans  or  irate  wives,  the  virgo  protests  against  the 
use  which  her  father  purposes  to  make  of  her.  He  is  selling  her  to  fill 
his  belly  (vss.  336-38);  though  poor,  they  should  better  preserve 
their  good  name  than  become  rich  at  the  expense  of  their  reputation 
(vss.  344  ff.);  Mrs.  Grundy  is  a  dangerous  enemy  (vss.  351  ff.). 
Her  father  retorts  that  his  own  appetite  is  the  first  consideration, 
and  that  the  sale  is  not  a  real  one;  but  she  does  not  like  even  the 
pretense  (vss.  357  ff.).  The  parasite  resents  wisdom  in  a  daughter, 
and  regards  it  as  a  weakness  of  her  sex;  the  only  weakness,  she 
repUes,  is  in  letting  evil  action  go  unnoticed  (vss.  365-70).  She 
yields  only  to  his  authority  as  father,  and  points  out  that  if  the 
family  gets  a  bad  name  her  marriage  will  be  difficult  to  arrange. 
The  parasite,  however,  with  a  thrust  at  the  evil  times,  declares 
that  a  dowry,  not  a  good  name,  counts  in  marriage;  and,  reminded 
by  her  of  his  poverty,  he  finds  in  his  stock  of  funny  stories  incal- 
culable wealth  sufficient  to  achieve  her  marriage  even  with  a  beggar 
(vss.  383  ff.). 

In  the  second  scene  (vss.  549  ff.)  she  carries  out  her  part  in  the 
trick  with  amazing  cleverness.  She  comes  on  with  a  slave  who  poses 
as  her  attendant  envoy  from  Persia;  the  two  pseudo-foreigners  are 
engaged  in  conversation  as  they  enter.  The  attendant  inquires 
whether  she  is  not  impressed  by  the  splendor  of  Athens;  she  repUes 
that  she  has  seen  only  the  external  beauty  of  the  town;  the  character 
of  its  citizens  is  still  unknown  to  her,  and  she  withholds  judgment; 

1  Cf.  Legrand,  Daos,  309. 


!',!: 


134 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


like  a  street-preacher  delivering  a  diatribe  she  moralizes,  lists  ten 
deadly  sins/  and  declares  a  single  wall  to  be  a  sufficient  state  of 
preparedness  if  the  citizens  are  innocent  of  these  sins,  but  a  hundred- 
fold wall  to  be  insufficient  if  a  town  is  corrupted  by  such  vices.  The 
slave-dealer,  considering  the  possibility  of  purchasing  her,  quizzes 
the  virgo;  her  answers  are  ingenious;  they  satisfy  the  purchaser 
without  committing  her  or  her  accomplices;  she  misrepresents  her 
actual  condition  as  daughter  of  the  parasite  in  only  one  respect: 
she  refers  to  herself  as  a  slave,  but  otherwise  every  response  fits  her 
real  situation  as  the  parasite's  daughter,  with  no  little  wit  at  the 
expense  of  the  parasite  for  the  audience  to  enjoy.  She  expects  her 
parents  to  redeem  her  but  does  not  object  to  a  brief  period  of  slavery 
(vss.  615  ff.);  yet  she  weeps  over  her  temporary  plight.  Dordalus 
inquires  her  name;  it  is  Lucris,  an  auspicious  name  from  his  stand- 
point. Where  was  she  born?  Her  mother  told  her  ''in  a  corner  of 
the  kitchen."  Reminded  that  he  means  in  what  country  was  she 
born,  she  insists  that  she  is  without  a  country  except  that  country 
where  she  happens  to  be;  the  past  is  gone  (vss.  630-38) ;  and  pressed 
for  an  answer  she  contends  that  Athens  must  now  be  her  country 
(vs.  641).  Was  her  father  a  captive?  No,  not  a  captive,  but  he 
lost  what  he  had.  What  is  his  name  ?  His  name  is  Miser  and  hers 
Misera.2  What  is  his  social  standing?  Everybody  likes  him, 
slaves  and  freemen,  and  she  warns  the  slave-dealer  that  her  father 
will  ransom  her,  his  friends  will  stand  by  him,  even  if  he  has  lost  his 
property.  The  slave-dealer  is  completely  won  over,  of  course  too 
easily;  the  comic  intrigue  regularly  represents  the  object  of  the 
intrigue  as  a  gullible  fool. 

The  entertainment  and  the  dramatic  effects  afforded  by  the 
virgo  are  admirable,  of  their  kind;  in  the  first  scene  her  modesty 
and  idealism  are  in  amusing  contrast  with  the  coarse  practical  wis- 
dom of  her  father;  and  in  the  second  scene  she  is  contrasted  implicitly 

1  If  both  passages  come  from  the  Greek  originals  of  the  two  plays,  anybody  who 
is  seeking  the  date  of  the  Greek  model  of  the  Persa  might  well  note  that  the  ten  sodales 
of  Persa  561  are  matched  by  the  sodales  of  Merc.  845  (six  in  845,  ten  in  848-49). 

*  Wilamowitz  {op.  cit.,  25)  finds  a  Euripidean  background  in  the  answer  of  Orestes, 
when  he  is  asked  his  name,  in  Iph.  500:  rb  fikv  SlKaiov  dvarvx^ti  KaXoified''  Av.  Cer- 
tainly the  diction  may  be  an  echo  of  Euripidean  phraieology,  but  the  general  idea 
in  "  nunc  et  ilium  Miseram  et  me  Miseram  aequom  est  nominarier  "  is  on  the  same  plane 
with  Gelasimus*  **Famem  ego  fuisse  suspicor  matrem  mihi"  {Stick.  155). 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


135 


with  the  slave-dealer,  at  whom  her  moralizing  deals  some  sharp 
thrusts.     The  serious-mindedness   which   is  her   permanent   char- 
acteristic is  sustained,  with  advantage  to  the  intrigue,  in  the  second 
scene;  her  quick  wit  is  perhaps  foisted  upon  her  to  some  extent  by  the 
dramatist  for  his  immediate  needs.     The  serious-mindedness,  the 
moraUzing,  are  the  qualities  of  her  class,  affected  by  the  secluded  life 
of  unmarried  women  in  contemporary  society;   doubtless  they  are 
exaggerated  for  dramatic  purposes,  as  are  the  qualities  of  the  cook, 
the  soldier,  the  courtesan,  in  comedy;  but  why  need  we  turn  to  the 
tragic  heroines  of  Euripides,  rather  than  to  real  life,  for  an  explanation 
of  the  virgo?    Must  she  be  a  tragic  heroine  simply  because  she  is 
serious-minded  ?    And  where  in  Euripides  is  such  sustained  prudish- 
ness  to  be  found  in  the  tragic  heroine  ?    The  individual  sentiments,  to 
be  sure,  in  content  and  phrasing  may  be  like  the  sententiousness 
of  Euripidean  characters,  but  the  influence  of  the  tragic  poet  upon 
diction  and  style  is  pervasive  throughout  the  Hellenistic  period;  the 
style  of  individual  sententiae  is  hardly  different  from  those  that  occur 
in  the  Mercator  and  Trinummus} 

In  brief,  the  inner  necessity  of  the  plot  makes  the  virgo  indispen- 
sable. Her  essential  features  are  those  of  the  virgo,  probably,  in 
contemporary  life,  with  some  exaggeration;  and  though  the  char- 
acter is  required  by  the  Greek  plot,  we  must  grant  in  this  case  the 
possibility  that  Plautus  expanded  suggestions  in  his  Greek  originalwith 
a  view  to  portraying  a  staid  Roman  virgin  from  his  own  environment.^ 

1  Cf.  Leo,  Plant.  Forsch.^,  136. 

>  It  is  hardly  fair  to  Wilamomtz  to  separate  his  confessedly  weak  arguments  based 
on  the  technique  of  the  Persa  from  the  pivotal  point  of  his  discussion,  but  I  wish 
simply  to  use  the  material  to  illustrate  the  general  attitude  of  modern  critics  toward 
various  phases  of  dramatic  form  in  Roman  comedy.  On  his  main  point,  that  vs.  506 
presupposes  an  independent  kingdom  of  Persia  and  dates  the  Greek  original  before 
338  B.C.,  I  may  say  that  not  merely  the  fictitious  nature  of  the  situation  but  the  purely 
fabulous  "Goldtown"  which  the  Persians  capture  suggest  to  me  a  Utopian  Eldorado 
rather  than  any  accurate  reference  to  contemporary  history.  I  sympathize  with  the 
views  of  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  183  ff.  (but  not  with  his  argument,  ibid.,  186  ff.). 

The  logical  relation  of  Leo's  note  on  Diogenes  {Hermes,  41,  441  ff.)  to  the  argu- 
ment of  Wilamowitz  should  be  thoroughly  understood.  Leo  says  that  if  Wilamowitz 
has  proved  his  case,  vs.  123  is  a  specific  reference  to  Diogenes.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  should  be  clear  that  if  Wilamowitz  has  not  proved  his  case,  Leo's  evidence,  which  is 
largely  from  Leonidas  of  Tarentum,  probably  a  younger  contemporary  of  Menander, 
would  only  establish  the  fact  that  at  the  time  of  the  New  comedy  the  equipment 
ascribed  to  the  Cynic  in  vss.  123  ff.  was  attributed  to  Diogenes  and  other  members  of 
the  school. 


136 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


137 


V 


Leo's  masterly  analysis  of  the  Stichus"^  has  doubtless  convinced 
many  students  of  comedy.  Certainly  the  extraordinary  structure 
of  the  piece  may  be  satisfactorHy  explained  as  a  combination  of 
parts  of  three  Greek  plays;  these  three  parts  might  be  called  ''The 
Faithful  Penelopes/'  ''The  Discomfiture  of  the  Parasite,"  "The 
Slaves'  Carousal."  The  Roman  play  mechanically  joins  these 
alien  elements  by  attaching  to  the  first  part  a  parasite,  whose  hopes 
of  a  dinner  are  twice  frustrated  in  the  second  chapter,  and  to  the 
second  part  a  slave,  Stichus,  who  arranges  the  revel  with  which,  as  in 
the  Persa,  the  play  concludes.  That  the  parasite  and  the  slave  are 
inorganic  roles,  that  the  play  as  a  whole  completely  disregards  unity 
of  persons,  are  incontestable  facts.  The  only  question  is  whether 
such  structure  is  inevitably  Roman  and  Plautine.  The  modern 
critic  denies  that  a  Greek  author,  and  particularly  Menander,  to 
whom  a  didascalic  notice  attributes  the  Greek  original,  was  capable 
of  this  artless  mechanism.^ 

There  is  only  one  fact  in  Leo's  analysis  which  I  should  qualify. 
Leo  maintains  not  only  that  the  first  appearance  of  the  parasite, 
Gelasimus,  is  not  motivated  (vss.  155  ff.),  but  that  his  appearance 
before  the  houses  of  the  brothers  is  in  flat  contradiction  of  an  essen- 
tial presupposition  of  the  plot.  Of  course  my  own  main  contention 
is  that  it  is  idle  to  deal  with  the  matter  of  motivation  until  this 
aspect  of  dramatic  technique  in  its  entirety  has  been  properly  studied, 
not  only  in  comedy,  but  in  tragedy.     Accepting,  however,  for  the 

1  Cf.  Nachr.  d.  gdtting.  Gesellschaft  (1902),  375  fif. 

2  "Menander  und  Plautus  schreiben  beide  fiir  die  Biihne,  aber  Menander  aus 
einer  grossen  Kunstentx^dcklung  heraus,  Plautus  fur  die  kiirzlich  entwickelte  Biihnen- 
bedurf n/ss  eines  kunstf reraden  Publikums ;  ihm  darf  man  die  Umgestaltung  Menanders 
auf  grobere  Biihnenwirkung  hin  nach  der  Lage  der  Dinge  wohl  zutrauen"  {.op.  ciL,  377). 
"Was  die  Form  angeht,  so  liegt  Menanders  strenge  und  konsequente  Kunst  vor 
Augen;  sie  vor  allem  gibt  den  Massstab  fiir  die  Treue  der  romischen  Bearbeitungen" 
(Geschd  rom.  Lit.,  I,  108).  Such  statements  illustrate  the  broad  vision  of  the  critic, 
and  if  limited  to  Menander  may  be  sound  generalization.  But  the  question  arises 
whether  the  absolute  uniformity  of  art  here  attributed  to  Menander  may  not  have 
been  violated,  in  at  least  one  play,  by  an  author  who  left  over  100  comedies;  modern 
critics  seem  to  forget  the  enormous  productivity  of  the  comic  poets  in  the  Hellenistic 
period;  how  complete  regularity  may  we  expect  in  authors  like  Antiphanes,  credited 
with  260  plays,  Alexis  with  245.  Philemon  with  97  ?  Furthermore,  in  his  critical 
studies  of  comedy  Leo  seems  to  regard  all  the  Greek  writers  of  comedy  in  the  New 
period  as  issuing  from  a  great  "  Kunstentwicklung."  for  clearly  whatever  is  not 
"Kunst"  in  Plautus  is.  in  Leo's  theory,  Roman. 


moment  Leo's  standpoint,  I  should  say  that  the  implicit  motivation 
of  the  parasite's  appearance  is  strong. 

The  presupposition  in  question  was  not  known  to  the  audience 
at  vs.  155,  when  Gelasimus  first  appears,  unless  it  had  been  clearly 
stated  in  a  prologue  now  lost  to  us.  A  modern  reader  has  to  recon- 
struct from  vss.  214,  267,  372,  462,  584,  628,  a  very  important  fact: 
from  these  verses  it  is  clear  that  the  two  brothers  had  been  forced 
into  their  triennium  of  foreign  travel  by  previous  riotous  living 
under  the  efficient  guidance  of  the  parasite;  their  commercial 
activity  is  an  attempt  to  recoup  their  lost  fortunes;  the  relations, 
therefore,  between  the  parasite  and  the  households  of  the  two  brothers 
are  far  from  friendly  during  the  action  of  the  play.  During  the 
triennium  the  parasite  has  never  been  entertained  at  the  homes  of 
the  brothers,  and  he  is  surprised  that  he,  of  all  persons,  should  be 
selected  as  the  messenger  of  one  of  the  sisters  and  sent  to  the  harbor 
for  news  of  the  absent  husbands  (vss.  266-68).  Under  these  circum- 
stances it  is  even  more  surprising  that  without  any  explicit  reason 
he  should  voluntarily  appear  before  the  houses  of  the  brothers  at 
vs.  155;  he  arrives  before  the  servant,  Crocotium,  can  fetch  him; 
and  the  futility,  fi:om  a  dramatic  standpoint,  of  his  function  as  mes- 
senger is  immediately  clear  when  in  the  next  scene  the  news  is 
actually  brought  by  Paegnium,  permanently  stationed  by  the  sisters 
as  a  lookout  at  the  harbor.  It  is  obvious  that  the  author,  Greek  or 
Roman,  wanted  Gelasimus  on  the  stage  at  this  place  and  time,  and 
lugged  him  on  without  any  artistic  manipulation  of  circumstances. 
Yet,  if  we  are  to  regard  motivation  as  essential  in  the  dramatic  art 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  I  should  suggest  that  the  monologue  of 
Gelasimus  at  vss.  155  ff.  sufficiently  explains  his  presence:  he  is 
reduced  to  starvation,  and  forced  to  sell  all  his  scanty  property; 
under  these  conditions  where  should  he  more  naturally  appear,  as 
a  last  resort,  than  at  the  houses  of  the  two  brothers,  where,  in  his 
pahny  days,  he  had  been  a  welcome  visitor  ? 

But  this  fact  is  merely  implied,  and  I  have  no  reason  to  question 
Leo's  general  conclusion  that  the  handling  of  the  situation  is  abso- 
lutely mechanical;  both  Gelasimus  and  Stichus  are  loosely  attached 
to  the  action;  they  are  in  different  degrees  inorganic  characters; 
and  it  may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  in  only  a  slightly  less  degree 


/ 


138 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


the  parasite,  Ergasilus,  in  the  Captivi,  from  a  comparison  with  whom 
Leo  draws  such  important  conclusions,  is  an  inorganic  character.^ 

The  reason  for  the  existence  of  these  two  inorganic  roles  (and 
the  weakness,  consequently,  of  Leo's  entire  theory  that  three  Greek 
plays  furnished  the  three  chapters  of  the  Stichus)  is  immediately 
apparent  just  so  soon  as  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  a  playwright 
who  had  devised  the  broad  exposition  of  the  first  two  scenes  (vss.  1- 
154)  as  a  complete  introduction  of  a  Greek  play.  For  Leo  admits 
that  this  exposition,  with  its  contrast  between  the  two  loyal  wives, 
and  the  further  contrast  between  the  two  Penelopes  and  their  father, 
is  thoroughly  Menandrian;  nor  is  it  demonstrably  incomplete;  he 
admits,  too,  that  of  the  three  Greek  plays  which  he  posits  as  fur- 
nishing the  three  chapters  of  the  Stichus  he  can  construct  the  plots 
of  the  last  two  but  is  absolutely  unable  to  think  out  to  the  end  the 
Greek  play  from  which  came  the  Menandrian  exposition  of  the 
Stichus.  Can  there  be  any  other  conclusion,  unless  Menander's 
imagination  was  more  fertile  than  Leo's,  than  that  Menander  himself, 
having  constructed  the  exposition  w^hich  we  find  in  the  Stichus^ 
would  be  forced  to  develop  inorganic  characters  and  a  relatively 
inorganic  play  as  the  result  of  such  an  exposition  ? 

Given,  as  the  exposition,  two  loyal  wives  separated  from  their 
husbands  for  a  triennium,  and  urged  by  a  practical  father  to  assume 
that  theu-  husbands  are  lost  to  them  and  to  marry  again  without 
further  delay,  what  dramatic  action  can  develop  when  these  two 
husbands  return  and  become  reconciled  to  their  wives  and  father- 
in-law  ?  Leo  is  much  disturbed  that  no  visible  reconciliation  takes 
place,  that  the  elaborateness  of  the  exposition  is  not  justified  by  any 
subsequent  action;  the  sisters  do  not  appear  on  the  stage  again  after 
the  exposition;  the  reunion  of  husbands  and  wives  takes  place 
off-stage;  the  reconciliation  with  the  father-in-law  is  stated  in 
the    case    of    one    brother,    more    visibly    presented    in    the    case 

1  For,  however  well  explained  his  presence  in  the  opening  scene  before  Hegio's 
house,  the  relation  of  Ergasilus  to  the  main  action  of  the  Captivi  is  so  loose  that  Ladewig 
and  Herzog  long  since  suggested  contamination  or  Plautine  invention  to  account  for 
the  inorganic  role;  these  suggestions  have  been  long  discarded;  yet  the  difference 
between  Ergasilus  and  Gelasimus  is  one  of  degree  rather  than  of  kind.  The  degree  may 
be  important,  but  its  importance  can  be  estimated  only  after  a  complete  study  of 
inorganic  roles  in  comedy,  not  after  a  casual  comparison  of  the  two  parasites  in  the 
Captivi  and  the  Stichus. 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


139 


of  the  second.  In  brief,  though  all  the  facts  of  Leo's  analysis 
might  harmonize  with  the  conclusion  that  the  Stichus  is  a  composite 
of  three  Greek  plays,  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  Menandrian  exposi- 
tion, if  complete,  would  compel  the  Greek  author  to  attach  a  char- 
acter like  the  parasite  to  the  first  chapter  of  the  action  in  order  to 
provide  the  action  of  the  second  chapter,  and  if  so  trivial  a  character 
as  Gelasimus  were  invented,  nothing  remained  but  the  invention  of 
a  second  inorganic  character  like  Stichus^  to  give  the  play  the  requisite 
length,  however  much  the  unity  of  persons  is  thereby  disrupted. 
There  is  nothing  inevitable  in  Leo's  conclusions;  and  if  papyri  from 
Egypt  should  ever  confirm  his  conclusions,  would  it  not  be  a  tribute 
to  his  intuition  rather  than  to  the  soundness  of  his  argument? 

Again,  however,  we  are  not  interested  primarily  in  the  theory  of 
contamination.  Here,  as  in  other  plays,  the  critic  has  isolated  as 
peculiar  features  of  a  single  play  certain  supposed  weaknesses;  they 
are  defects  in  motivation  of  entrance,  in  the  organic  relation  of  char- 
acters to  action,  and  of  exposition  to  subsequent  dramatic  develop- 
ment. Leo,  to  be  sure,  compares  and  contrasts  the  parasites  of  the 
Stichus  and  of  the  Captivi;  but  he  had  no  complete  study  of  any  one 
of  these  three  aspects  of  dramatic  technique  upon  which  to  base 
sound  conclusions.  May  I  suggest,  if  only  again  by  a  single  parallel 
instance,  the  need  of  less  casual  procedure  in  the  handling  of  the 
technique  of  comedy? 

A  very  important  item  in  Leo's  argument  is  the  wastefulness,  in 
the  present  text  of  the  Roman  play,  of  the  admirable  exposition, 
both  of  the  general  situation  and  of  the  characters,  in  the  opening 
scenes  of  the  Stichus.  Quite  apart  from  my  suggestion  that  this 
apparently  useless  introduction  and  the  inorganic  action  that  follows 
are  explained  by  the  conditions  of  the  exposition  itself,  there  is  clear 
evidence  that  the  lack  of  close  organic  connection  between  exposi- 
tion and  main  action  is  not  peculiar  to  the  Stichus,  and  is  demon- 
strably Greek  rather  than  Roman  in  its  broad  aspects. 

1  The  mechanical  inlay  which  Leo  finds  at  vss.  419-53  and  attributes  to  Plautus' 
efforts  to  attach  Stichus  to  the  action  of  the  play  might  have  been  better  in  the  original. 
If  Stichus  was  really  part  of  Menander's  Adelphoe,  the  passage  vss.  435-53  (vss.  446  ff. 
reveal  Plautus'  hand)  may  be  a  substitute  for  a  lyrical  intermezzo  by  the  music  girls 
(hasce  418)  in  the  Greek  play;  or  so  at  least  I  should  expect  the  many  searchers  after 
survivals  of  the  Menandrian  chorus  in  Roman  comedy  to  suggest. 


140 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


141 


The  Mostellaria  of  Plautus,  from  the  Greek  of  Philemon,  is 
admitted  by  Leo^  to  be  thoroughly  Greek  in  all  essential  features  of 
the  action;  nor  does  he  contend  that  any  of  the  exposition  is  Plautine 
save  the  solo-song  of  Philolaches,  which,  he  thinks,  in  the  Greek 
original  appeared  as  a  monologue;   of  contamination  the  play  is  as 
innocent  as  any  Roman  comedy  can  be.     The  four  introductory 
scenes  of  the  play  constitute  the  most  elaborate  exposition  in  extant 
comedy:  in  the  first  scene  two  slaves  in  dialogue  reveal  the  general 
situation— the  riotous  Hf  e  of  a  son  under  the  direction  of  a  slave  in  the 
father's  absence;   in  the  second,  the  son  himself  in  song  reveals  his 
weakness  of  character;    in  the  third,  the  young  man's  slave-girl 
sweetheart,   now^  Uberated  with  borrowed  money,  is  sharply  con- 
trasted with  an  old  beldam,  her  servant,  and  the  effect  is  admirably 
portrayed  in  the  changing  moods  of  the  eavesdropping  lover;    a 
fourth  scene  provides  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  whole  situation — 
a  boon  companion  and  his  sweetheart  join  the  other  pair  of  lovers  in 
a  brief,  broadly  humorous,  lyrical  intermezzo.    Yet  after  this  extended 
exposition  of  character  as  well  as  of  situation  the  persons  intro- 
duced to  us  in  these  scenes  practically  disappear  for  the  rest  of  the 
action;  Tranio,  one  of  the  slaves  in  the  first  scene,  does  become  the 
arch-intriguer  and  dominates  the  later  action,  but  the  lover  and  his 
sweetheart,  whose  characters  have  been  so  fully  delineated,  are 
removed  from  the  stage,   and  the  subordinate  boon  companion, 
briefly  presented  in  the  fourth  scene  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
main  action,  is  merely  lugged  on  at  the  end  of  the  play  as  a  homo  ex 
machina  to  cut  the  knot.     The  removal  of  the  hero  and  the  heroine, 
as  we  suppose  them  to  be  from  the  exposition,  is  cleverly  devised;  in 
the  Stichus  the  wives  are  removed  from  the  action  only  by  the 
dramatic  necessity,  by  the  impracticability  of  developing  dramatic 
action  through  their  presence.     But  I  should  be  disposed  to  assert 
that  these  expositions  of  two  different  plays  supported  a  view  that 
two  Greek  poets,  Menander  and  Philemon,  were  so  interested  in  char- 
acter per  se  that  they  disregarded  close  interrelation  of  exposition 
and  main  action  to  indulge  in  the  portrayal  of  persons  essential  to  the 
situation  but  irrelevant  to  the  subsequent  action. 

1  Leo,  Gesch.  d.  r&m.  Lit.,  I,  110  S. 


As  my  choice  of  illustrations  indicates,  I  am  concerned  only  with 
those  general  aspects  of  the  form  of  Roman  comedy  from  which 
modern  critics  obtain  their  notions  of  the  relation  of  Plautus  and 
Terence  to  their  Greek  originals;  these  critics  are  intent  upon  the 
obvious  and  laudable  task  of  reconstructing  the  history  of  ancient 
comedy,  and  of  placing,  not  only  Plautus  and  Terence,  but  the  Greek 
authors  whom  these  Roman  playwrights  translated,  in  their  proper 
historical  relation  to  one  another  and  to  antecedent  comedy. 

The  problem  that  confronts  these  modern  scholars,  who,  in  view  of 
the  fragmentary  remains  of  Hellenistic  comedy,  may  well  seem  ambi- 
tious in  their  aims,  is  a  difficult  one.  The  plays  of  Aristophanes 
present  an  incoherent  satirical  burlesque,  provided  with  a  chorus 
as  an  organic  part  of  at  least  the  first  part  of  the  play,  and  lampooa- 
ing  public  men,  public  policy,  and  the  general  trend  of  ideas  and  cus- 
toms in  contemporary  Athens — a  local  product,  instinct  with  the 
life  of  the  Greek  metropolis  of  the  fifth  centur>\  The  comedy  of 
the  Hellenistic  period  exists  only  in  fragmentary  form,  through  which 
the  content  is  only  vaguely  discernible,  the  structure  even  more 
difficult  to  determine.  The  26  Roman  plays  adapted  from  this 
Hellenistic  comedy  present  a  coherent  drama  of  priva^te  life,  of 
sentiment,  and  of  intrigue,  without  a  chorus,  in  which  a  generalized 
picture  of  contemporary  society  has  replaced  the  fantastic  treatment 
of  local  problems.  How  are  these  two  diverse  types  of  comedy  re- 
lated to  each  other,  if  related  at  all  ? 

Ancient  theory^,  expressed  in  a  number  of  Byzantine  documents, 
and  perpetuating  with  later  accretions  academic  opinion  that  may  in 
some  respects  be  as  old  as  the  school  of  Aristotle,^  solved  this  ques- 
tion by  the  assertion  that  financial  pressure  led  to  the  elimination  of 
the  chorus  in  Old  comedy,  that  political  conditions  made  im^racti^ 
cable  the  open  criticism  of  men  and  events,  the  implication  being  that 
these  two  causes  suffice  to  explain  the  development  of  an  incoherent 
satirical  burlesque  into  a  well-organized  realistic  comedy  of  manners. 

Making  all  allowance  for  the  facts,  that  in  some  plays  of  Aris- 
tophanes the  chorus  falls  into  the  background  or  almost  completely 
disappears,  that  relative  unity  is  occasionally  discoverable  even  in 

1  Kaibel,  "Die  Prolegomena  HEPI  KfiMOIAIAS,"  Abhandl.  gotting.  GeselL,  II/4 
(1898). 


142 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


143 


plays  in  which  the  chorus  is  prominent,  that  in  his  latest  plays 
Aristophanes  made  use  of  sentimental  legend  in  which  the  exposure 
of  a  child  and  its  recognition  were  essential  features,  modern  criti- 
cism, with  some  reason,  refuses  to  admit  that  ancient  theory  satis- 
factorily accounts  for  the  sharp  contrast  in  both  form  and  content 
between  Aristophanic  plays  and  the  extant  comedies  of  Plautus 
^and  Terence.     It  asserts  as  an  incontrovertible  fact^  that  at  the  turn 
of  the  fifth  century^  the  younger  Greek  tragedy,  represented  chiefly 
by  Euripides,  exerted  a  potent  influence  upon  the  form  and  content 
of  comedy,  which,  once  the  chorus  was  removed,  took  over  the  coher- 
ent structure  of  Euripidean  tragedy  and  perpetuated  without  impedi- 
ment the  ideals  that  the  tragic  poet,  hampered  by  the  conventions  of 
his  literary  type,  could  only  faintly  realize.     Euripides,  yearning 
to   portray   realistically   contemporary^   life,    must   content   himself 
w4th  making  of  the  demigod  Orestes  a  very  ordinary^  human  being; 
Hellenistic  comedy,  free  from  the  restrictions  of  tragedy,  and  relieved 
of  the  chorus  as  an  organic  element,  easily  conformed  to  a  demand 
for  realistic  portrayal  of    private  life  and  attained  artistic  unity. 
'Roman  comedy,  therefore,  reflecting  the  Euripidean  form  of  Hellen- 
istic models,  reveals  a  serious  framework  of  well-knit  action,  with 
comical  appurtenances,  and  a  happy  issue;    its  artistic  unity  and 
much  of  its  content  are  an  inheritance  from  Euripidean  art. 

The  features  of  Roman  comedy  which  establish  this  fundamental 
presupposition  are  briefly  these  :2  The  plays  are  serious,  the  comic 
I  elements  often  detachable;  remove  the  parasite  from  the  Captivi, 
\  change  the  issue,  a  tragedy  results.  The  emotions  exhibited  and 
excited  by  Roman  comedy  are,  mainly,  those  proper  to  tragedy 
rather  than  comedy.  The  plot  of  intrigue  is  anticipated  in  several 
plays  of  Euripides.  The  exposure  of  children  at  birth  and  their  later 
recognition  is  a  tragic  theme  and  situation.  The  intimate  life  and 
the  domestic  characters  have  little  or  no  background  in  Aristophanes 
but  are  suggested  in  the  tendencies  of  Euripides  which  Aristophanes 
delighted  to  ridicule.     The  plays  of  Euripides,  in  which  the  chorus  is 

^  Leo,  Gesch.  d.  r5m.  Lit.,  I,  100  fiP. 

« Ihid.,  I,  104  ff.  For  a  comprehensive  statement  of  the  case  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  historian  of  Greek  literature  of.  Christ-Schmid,  Gcsch.  d.  griech.  Lit.,  II/1», 
26  fiF.  References  on  the  details  are  deferred  to  the  fuller  discussion  of  the  theory  in  a 
subsequent  paper. 


often  somewhat  detachable,  fall  into  six  or  seven  coherent  chapters, 
separated  by  choral  songs;  modern  critics  enjoy  finding  in  the  vacant 
stages  of  Roman  comedy  the  deserted  abodes  of  a  tragic  chorus, 
these  empty  spaces  setting  off  w^ell-defined  chapters  of  action  and 
distinguishing  a  general  unity  of  form.^  The  most  conspicuous 
feature  of  the  technique  of  Roman  comedy  is  solo-speech  and  solo- 
song;  Euripides  not  only  extensively  cultivated  solo-song  by  the 
actors,  but  more  conspicuously  than  the  other  tragedians  resents  the 
impediment  of  the  chorus,  and  on  occasion  puts  in  the  mouth  of  a 
character  a  quasi-soliloquy  in  spite  of  the  presence  of  the  chorus,  or 
rarely  removes  the  chorus  and  resorts  to  monologue.  Of  these  solo- 
speeches  in  comedy  the  prologues  of  many  plays  of  Plautus,  both  in 
the  style  in  which  they  set  forth  the  plot  and  in  respect  to  the  char- 
acters in  whose  mouths  they  are  put,  are  Euripidean.  Aside  from 
these  essential  elements  of  form  and  content  Roman  comedy  in  a 
variety  of  lesser  features,  in  the  use  of  various  dramatic  devices,  in 
general  sententiousness,  in  digregsorv^  moralizing  upon  social  conditions 
and  the  proposal  of  social  reforms,  in  attacks  upon  social  groups,  is 
supposed  to  reflect  the  technique  and  the  substance  of  later  tragedy. 
Having  thus  confirmed  the  basis  of  its  procedure  by  a  substantial 
amount  and  quality  of  evidence  modern  criticism  finds  in  the  Roman 
plays,  more  conspicuously  in  the  comedies  of  Plautus  than  in  those 
of  Terence,^  striking  exceptions  to  the  uniformity  of  structure  and 
content  demanded  by  its  Euripidean  theory.  The  Casina,  for 
example,  is  a  broad  farce.^     Various  plays  operate  with  inorganic 

>  Difficulties  in  the  assumption  that  vacant  stages  in  Roman  comedy  with  any 
regularity  mark  essential  pauses  are  indicated  by  Conrad,  op.  cit.,  passijn. 

2  The  differences  between  the  six  plays  of  Terence  and  the  twenty  plays  of  Plautus 
have  probably  contributed  largely  to  the  development  of  the  methods  of  modern 
criticism.  Terence  reveals  a  relative  regularity  in  structure;  Plautus  has  many 
vagaries.  The  younger  poet  is  supposed  to  be  more  closely  adapting  his  Greek 
originals;  Plautus'  vagaries  are  supposed  to  be  Roman.  But  Terence  is  two-thirds 
Menandrian;  may  not  his  relative  uniformity  be  merely  the  relative  regularity  of  a 
single  Greek  author,  and  Plautus'  variety,  though  sometimes  Roman,  in  general  the 
individual  variations  of  a  number  of  Greek  playwrights  ?  Modern  interpretation  of 
comedy  is  hampered,  from  my  standpoint,  by  this  concentration  upon  the  uniformity 
of  Terence-Menander;  the  diversity  of  Plautus  may  be  the  diversity  of  Hellenistic 
comedy  in  the  large. 

»  Mainly  because  of  its  farcical  character  and  the  preponderance  of  song  the 
Casina,  in  modern  theory,  becomes  largely  a  Plautine  composition  (Leo,  Gesch.  d.  rom. 
Lit.,  I,  126  fif.).     It  is  not  clear  how  Leo  would  reconcile  his  two  opinions  that  the  songs 


<l! 


144 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


145 


characters.  The  chapters  of  action  are  not  always  artistically 
joined.  Entrance  and  exit  are  often  weakly  motivated,  or  not 
explained  at  all.^  There  are  logical  contradictions  in  the  facts  of 
the  plot.  Obviously,  if  the  main  presupposition  is  sound  these 
irregularities  and  unevennesses  must  be  explained  in  accord  with 
the  presupposition  of  general  dependence  upon  Euripides.  The 
explanation  is  found  by  the  critics  in  two  known  conditions,  one  in 
the  Roman  methods  of  composition,  the  other  in  the  transmission  of 
the  Roman  texts.  An  accumulation  of  weaknesses  in  one  play, 
especially  a  combination  of  two  plots  of  intrigue  directed  to  the  same 
end  and  accompanied  by  contradictions  of  fact  and  related  weak- 
nesses of  technique,  is  explained  as  due  to  the  adaptation  of  two  or 
more  Greek  plays  in  one  Roman  copy,  to  contamination.  Isolated 
defects  in  various  plays  are  justified  as  the  result  of  corruption  in 
text-tradition;  these  were  promoted  especially  by  the  reproduction 
of  Roman  comedies  in  the  generations  after  Plautus  and  Terence, 
such  reproductions  leading  to  the  revision  of  the  original  text  by  the 
hands  of  stage-managers. 

of  the  Casina  are  evidence  of  Plautine  workmanship,  and  that  the  lyrical  parts  of  the 
Persa,  if  Wilamowitz'  view  of  the  play  is  right,  require  us  to  consider  "ob  nicht  auch 
im  Original  [i.e.,  of  the  Persa]  mehr  als  bei  Menander  und  Philemon  gesungen  wurde" 
(op.  cit.,  I,  120).  Because  of  its  complexity  I  have  not  attempted,  in  this  brief  account 
of  modern  interpretation,  to  state  the  relation  of  the  problem  of  the  cantica  in  Plautus 
to  the  historical  development  of  comedy. 

1  The  broader  aspects  of  motivation  in  tragedy  and  comedy  must  be  considered 
before  one  may  estimate  the  significance  of  apparent  resemblances  between  Euripides 
and  the  New  comedy  (cf.  C.  Harms,  De  introitu  personarum  in  Euripidis  et  novae 
comoediae  fabulis,  Gottingen,  1914).     Dramatists  may  independently  develop  similar 
methods  of  motivation.     A  stereotyping  of  dramatic  devices  may  have  arisen  naturally 
at  the  dramatic  festivals  at  Athens  which  would  lead  to  resemblances  in  such  features 
between  tragedy  and  comedy  without  necessarily  indicating  predominant  influence 
of  one  type  upon  the  other.     The  rigidity  of  scenic  background  and  the  domestic  setting 
which  New  comedy  has  in  common  with  Euripidean  tragedy  might  produce  some  com- 
mon devices  of  motivation  which  would  not,  therefore,  establish  a  theory  of  Euripidean 
influence.     And  finally,  Euripides  as  the  precursor  of  the  Hellenistic  period  would 
naturally  anticipate  New  comedy  in  many  respects  without  any  direct  influence  upon 
the  type;  so,  for  example,  in  the  matter  of  motivating  entrance  by  the  emotion  of  fear 
(Harms,  op.  cii.,  28  ff.),  note  the  general  features  common  to  all  the  tragic  and  comic 
poets,  and  the  single  trait  which  Euripides  and  New  comedy  have  in  common,    the 
emotional  exordium.     Is  this  exclusively  due  to  the  influence  of  Euripides,  or  is  it  the 
emotional  elaboration  of  the  later  epoch  which  Euripides  anticipated  ?     And  if  there  is 
resemblance  in  the  diction  and  style  of  this  emotional  exordium,  is  this  kind  of  influence 
pertinent  to  a  theory  that  Euripides  at  an  early  date  determined  the  form  and  some  of 
the  content  of  New  comedy  ? 


The  result  of  this  modern  theory  and  method  is  a  certain  neatness 
and  dispatch  in  the  interpretation  of  Roman  comedy.  Terence 
is  admitted  to  be  an  artistic  contaminator;  the  commentary  of 
Donatus  supplies  the  evidence.  But  in  Plautus  everything  artis- 
tically satisfying  is  Greek  in  origin,  everything  defective  and  weak  is 
Roman  botching,  whether  of  Plautus  himself  or  a  later  Roman  hand. 
This  differentiation  of  the  tw^o  dramatists  is  not  at  odds  with  what  we 
know  of  the  different  nature  and  entourage  of  the  two  poets.  Modern 
theory  has  progressed  so  far  that  now  about  one-half  of  the  Plautine 
corpus  is  supposed  to  show  the  injurious  effects  of  contamination; 
the  scope  of  retractation  is  undefinable,  affecting  various  plays  in 
different  degrees. 

Either  retractation  or  contamination  is  safely  used  to  explain 
conditions  in  our  texts  when  the  critic  rests  his  case  on  a  substantial 
basis  of  evidence.  For  example,  retractation  is  often  solidly  estab- 
lished when  the  text  presents  dupUcate  passages;  but  the  critic  enters 
upon  more  dangerous  ground  when  mere  weakness  of  technique 
starts  the  application  of  the  principle.  Contamination  is  a  rela- 
tively sound  explanation  if  the  critic  finds  in  a  given  play  essential 
contradictions  of  fact  combined  with  a  double  intrigue,  each  part 
of  which  is  directed  to  the  same  end,  and  both  parts  of  w^hich  are 
mechanically  affixed  to  each  other,  as  may  be  the  case  in  the  Poenulus 
and  Miles.  But  I  venture  to  protest  strongly  against  the  applica- 
tion of  either  principle,  and  against  the  presupposition  of  modern 
criticism,  when  they  operate  exclusively  with  supposed  weaknesses 
of  dramatic  technique,  or  with  any  apparently  abnormal  features, 
that  find  immediate  explanation  in  the  conditions  of  the  dramatic 
plot,  in  the  needs  and  demands  of  the  ancient  audience,  Greek  as 
well  as  Roman,  and  in  the  peculiar  arrangements  of  the  ancient 
stage  and  theater  or  in  the  conventions  established  by  known  literary 
tradition. 

The  casual  and  incomplete  treatment  of  large  problems  of  dra- 
matic technique  in  Roman  comedy  is  due  in  some  measure  to  the 
concentration  of  modern  students  upon  the  important  questions 
raised  by  contamination  and  retractation;  the  narrowness  of  vision 
induced  by  such  concentration  is  further  increased  by  intensive 
studies  of  single  plays  which  seem,  to  individual  critics,  to  reveal  the 


i 


146 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


effects  of  these  two  factors  in  the  composition  and  the  transmission  of 

the  Latin  texts. 

But  even  more  effective  than  the  consequences  of  this  concentra- 
tion upon  a  Umited  amount  of  text,  and  upon  two  distinct  problems 
raised  by  the  text,  has  been  the  fundamental  presupposition  which 
dominates  the  higher  criticism  of  Hellenistic  comedy  and  the  Roman 
adaptations.     The  assumption,  or,  as  modern  criticism  holds,  the 
incontrovertible  fact,   that  lEuripidean   tragedy  exerted   a  potent 
influence  upon  comedy  at  the  turn  of  the  fifth  century  at  once 
establishes  a  rigid  norm  and  closes  the  minds  of  the  critics  to  the 
possibility  that  many  of  the  defects  of  form  in  Roman  comedy  are 
Greek  in  origin  and  natural  survivals  of  the  incoherence  of  earlier 
stages  of  the  Greek  type.     Modern  theory,  in  spite  of  its  emphasis 
upon  Euripidean  influence,  cheerfully  grants  that  the  Hellenistic 
type  in  manv  respects  continues  and  develops  important  features  of 
AristophaniJ  comedy  ;i  the  critics  maintain  simply  that  later  comedy 
inherits  more  of  the  essential  characteristics  of  one  parent  than  of  the 
other.     Under  these  circumstances  there  are  clearly  other  possible 
explanations:   if  the  evidence  warrants  it,  Hellenistic  comedy  may 
derive   neither   from   Aristophanic   comedy   nor  from   Euripidean 
tragedy  nor  from  the  marriage  of  both,  but  from  a  different  source 
whFch  combined  a  relative  unity  of  structure  with  characters  and 
incidents  inherent  in  comedy  rather  than  tragedy;  or  it  may  be  that 
later  Greek  comedy,  like  so  many  other  Hellenistic  types,  wa^  subject 
to  a  variety  of  influences,  among  which  Euripidean  tragedy  is  less 
significant  than  modern  critics  suppose.     Certainly  many  aspects  of 
Hellenistic  comedy  which  resemble  corresponding  features  of  the 
later  tragedy  are  sufficiently  explained  without  resort  to  the  conten- 
tion that  such  influence  was  exerted  overwhelmingly  at  the  turn  of 
the  fifth  century.     Through  mythological  travesty,  as  the  critics 
admit,  tragedy  influenced  comedy  at  a  much  earlier  period;   later, 
the  pervasive  influence  of  Euripides  upon  Hellenistic  poetry  and  the 
direct  influence  of  the  tragedian  upon  individual  poets  like  Menander 
inevitably  affected  various  Greek  playwrights  in  different  degrees. 
But  this  statement  of  the  case  is  far  different  from  a  view  that 

1  Leo,  Gesch.  d.  rom.  Lit.,  I.  104  ff.;   and  (correcting  the  misapprehension  of  Siiss) 
Plant.  FoTBch},  113.  n.  2. 


The  Interpretation  of  Roman  Comedy 


147 


Euripidean  art  was  so  dominant  an  influence  early  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Hellenistic  comedy  that  a  regularity  of  artistic  form  was 
established,  deviations  from  which  may  be  explained  only  as  due  to 
Roman  corruption.  If  this  presupposition  without  being  entirely 
demolished  is  appreciably  weakened,  the  foundations  of  modern 
interpretation  are  unsettled,  the  criteria  of  contamination  and 
retractation  are  subject  to  revision,  and  the  problems  of  dramatic 
technique  must  be  regarded  from  a  different  standpoint. 

In  the  next  paper,  therefore,  I  shall  endeavor  to  review  without 
prejudice  the  evidence  bearing  upon  the  antecedents  of  Hellenistic 
comedy.  Obviously  the  interpretation  of  dramatic  technique  in 
Roman  comedy  must  depend  upon  the  conclusions  of  such  a  study 
if  the  evidence  w^arrants  positive  conclusions. 

University  of  Chicago 


Reprinted  for  private  circulation  from 
Classical  Philology,  Vol.  XII,  No.  4,  October  1917 


THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  HELLENISTIC  COMEDY 

By  Henry  W.  Prescott 

The  possibility,  which  I  have  briefly  indicated  {CP,  XI,  127  ff.), 
that  certain  features  of  Roman  comedy  regarded  by  modern  critics 
as  inartistic  and  Roman  in  origin  were  inherent  in  the  Greek  originals 
necessitates  a  review  of  the  evidence  upon  which  this  modern  criticism 
bases  its  presupposition  that  Hellenistic  comedy  is  the  issue  of  a 
great  Kunstentwicklung  in  which  Euripides  was  the  initiating  and 
controlhng  force.  In  such  a  review  I  must  be  content,  without 
pretentious  bibliography  or  detailed  analysis,  to  consider  the  broad 
foundations  of  this  theory;  the  critical  question  which  I  have  to 
answer  is,  how  far  the  interpretation  of  the  technique  of  Roman 
comedy  must  be  influenced  and  determined  by  known  facts  regarding 
the  development  of  the  form  of  comedy  in  earlier  stages  of  its  history. 

The  study  of  literary  genesis  in  classical  literature  seldom  leads 
to  convincing  conclusions.  There  are  usually  tremendous  gaps 
in  the  evidence.  And  in  the  case  of  comedy,  particularly,  the 
disadvantage  of  fragmentary  evidence  is  increased  if  one  admits,  as 
I  must,  that  whatever  validity  is  attached  in  general  to  evolutionary 
development  in  literature,  comedy  is  pecuharly  exposed,  as  originally 
an  informal  popular  entertainment  and  even  in  its  more  artistic 
form  ever  en  rapport  with  the  audience,  to  influences  which  promote 
spontaneous  generation  and  encourage  the  creation  of  what  the 
biologists  call  sports.  There  is  great  danger  in  taking  comedy  too 
seriously.  The  problem  forced  upon  me  by  the  modern  inter- 
pretation of  Roman  comedy  I  should  be  glad  to  dismiss  in  the  words 
which  Mother  Jaguar  addressed  to  her  son  when  he  found  diflficulty 
in  discriminating  two  new  animals  in  the  woods  which,  Hke  Euripi- 
dean  tragedy  and  Hellenistic  comedy,  seemed  to  have  lost  distinguish- 
ing traits  by  a  process  of  exchange  and  merger:  ".  .  .  .  the  one  you 
said  couldn't  s\vim,  swims,  and  the  one  3^ou  said  couldn't  curl  up, 

curls;    and  they've  gone  shares  in  their  prickles,  I  think '' 

''Son,   son,"  said  Mother  Jaguar,  ever  so  many  times  graciously 
[Classical  Philology  XII,  October,  1P17J    405 


I 


406 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


waving  her  tail,  ''a  Hedgehog  is  a  Hedgehog,  and  can^t  be  anything 
but  a  Hedgehog;  and  a  Tortoise  is  a  Tortoise,  and  can  never  be 
anything  else."  '^But  it  isn't  a  Hedgehog,  and  it  isn't  a  Tortoise. 
It's  a  little  bit  of  both,  and  I  don't  know  its  proper  name."  ''Non- 
sense," said  Mother  Jaguar,  ''everything  has  its  proper  name.  I 
should  call  it  'Armadillo'  till  I  found  out  the  real  one.  And  I  should 
leave  it  alone." 


Mother  Jaguar's  first  contention  is  practically  identical  with  the 
view  of  ancient  theorists  who,  in  various  Greek  documents  dating 
in  their  present  form  from  the  eighth  to  the  fifteenth  century  a.d., 
derive  Hellenistic  comedy  from  the  Old  comedy  of  the  fifth  century.^ 
To  them  comedy  is  comedy.  The  general  insistence  of  ancient 
literary  theory  upon  comedy  and  tragedy  as  independent  entities 
may  have  Winded  these  critics  to  the  discovery  of  modern  scholars 
that  this  later  comedy  is  not  comedy,  but  merely  Euripidean  tragedy 
with  comic  appurtenances.  In  any  case  there  are  reasons  for 
rejecting  the  ancient  theory,  at  least  in  so  far  as  it  represents  Greek 
comedy  throughout  its  entire  history  as  primarily  devoted  to  abusive 
criticism  of  men  and  affairs,  and  as  changing  the  objects  and  the 
form  of  its  criticism  under  the  influence  of  external  conditions, 

political  or  economic. 

Democracy  encourages  an  extreme  form  of  XoiSopia ;  oligarchy 
represses  open  criticism.  So  far  as  it  covers  only  the  Old  and  the 
Middle  periods  of  Greek  comedy,  the  poUtical  environment  of  the 
two  periods  supports  the  relative  validity  of  the  theory  up  to  this 
point,  even  if  one  finds  violent  criticism  in  fragments  of  Middle 
comedy  and  observes  that  orators  of  the  fourth  century  are  appar- 
entlv  immune  in  attacking  men  prominent  in  pubUc  life.  But  the 
absurdity  of  the  theory  becomes  apparent  when,  as  may  have  been 
the  case,  a  rigid  systematizing  led  to  the  extension  of  this  simple 
political  formula  in  order  to  cover,  consistently  with  the  controlling 
idea,  the  different  form  and  content  of  New  comedy;  for  then  the 

1  Kaibel.  Comic.  Gr.  Frag.,  I,  3  ff.  contains  the  text  of  these  documents.  Refer- 
ences to  Kaibel,  without  further  definition,  are  to  the  pages  and  the  marginal 
numbering  of  lines  of  this  edition.  For  a  critical  study  of  sources,  cf.  Kaibel, 
"Die  Prolegomena  HEPI  KQMQIAIAS,"  Abhandl.  gotting.  GeselL,  II/4  (1898). 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


407 


ancient  critics  were  driven  to  the  extreme  contention  that  in  New 
comedy  abusive  attack  was  directed  against  slaves  and  foreigners. 
It  is  quite  evident  from  the  remains  o^  New  comedy  and  from  the 
Roman  adaptations  that  the  poets  of  this  later  period  were  innocent 
of  any  malicious  designs  upon  slaves  and  foreigners;  the  political 
systematizer  has  selected  these  two  categories  out  of  the  many 
characters  represented  in  the  plays  of  New  comedy,  because  they 
furnish  a  direct  antithesis  to  the  rich  freemen  and  influential  citizens 
who,  according  to  the  same  theory,  were  subjected  to  violent  criticism 
in  Old  comedy.  At  this  point,  therefore,  ancient  critics  become 
purely  rhetorical.  One  may,  however,  still  insist  on  the  plausibility 
of  the  general  notion  if  it  is  limited  to  Old  and  Middle  comedy,  and 
may  regard  the  weakness  as  mere  botching,  by  some  later  hand,  of 
a  theory  that  v/as  reasonable  when  first  presented,  perhaps  in  the 
course  of  the  fourth  century,  as  an  explanation  of  the  differences 
between  Old  and  Middle  comedy.^ 

By  this  shift  from  explicit  criticism  to  veiled  attack  and  innuendo 
ancient  theory  accounts  for  essential  changes  in  content;  develop- 
ment in  form  it  relates  particularly  to  the  gradual  elimination  of 
the  chorus.  The  statement  of  the  case  in  Platonius^  is  blurred  and 
inaccurate.  He  mentions  the  defect  of  choregoi  and  the  consequent 
omission  of  parabases  and  chorika  mele  in  close  connection  with  his 
statement  of  the  limitations  of  free  speech  under  an  oHgarchy.  A 
clearer  statement  of  the  case,  in  accord  with  probability,  might 
explicitly  relate  the  diminished  importance  of  the  chorus  to  this 
suppression  of  frank  criticism,  for  the  chorus  as  the  main  instrument 
in  the  expression  of  lampooning  attacks  on  individuals  and  public 
policies  would  necessarily  lose  its  function  so  soon  as  outspoken 
criticism  was  checked,  and  would  ultimately  disappear  unless  it 
could  acquire  a  new  and  equally  essential  function.  But  Platonius 
leaves  this  important  consideration  implicit  in  the  context  and 
explicitly  refers  the  diminished  role  of  the  chorus  to  financial  exi- 
gency, resulting  apparently  from  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Con- 
sistently, in  point  of  date,  he  mentions  as  an  example  of  comedies 
produced  under  these  conditions  the  Aiolosikon   of   Aristophanes, 

I  Kaibel,  "Die  Prolegomena,"  48  S. 

*  Kaibel,  4/21  ff.,  and  repeated  in  different  form  5/45  ff. 


408 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


409 


and  inaccurately  includes,  as  if  of  the  same  date,  a  mythological 
travesty  by  Cratinus,  the  Odusses,  which  was  probably  exhibited  as 
early  as  440-38;  and  he  explicitly  refers  this  shift  from  lampooning 
comedy  to  mythological  travesty,  in  respect  to  content  as  well  as  to 
form,  to  the  necessity  of  diverting  criticism  from  men  and  affairs 
to  literary  material  as  found  in  mythological  tragedy.  A  mythologi- 
cal travesty  without  parabases  and  chorika  he  represents  to  be  typical 

of  Middle  comedy.^ 

In  my  opinion  this  part  of  Platonius'  statement  is  a  plausible 
theorv,  if  one  revises  the  form  of  his  expression  in  accord  with  known 
facts  and  conceivable  conditions,  correcting  his  obvious  error  and 
emphasizing  what  he  left  implicit.     Such  a  revised  statement  might 
run  thus:   Old  comedy  in  the  fifth  century  was  devoted  mainly  to 
satirical  criticism  of  prominent  men.     At  intervals  and  temporarily 
from  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  on  this  outspoken  criticism  was 
checked  ;2  on  such  occasions  the  playwrights  often  resorted  to  myth- 
ological travesty,  and  the  chorus,  as  the  main  instrument  of  satirical 
attack,   dropped  into  the  background.     At  the  turn   of  the  fifth 
century,  when  free  speech  was  more  effectually  suppressed,  these 
mvthological  comedies,  approximately  chorusless,  emerged  as  the 
dominant  type  of  comedy;   so  that  what  was  occasional  and  tem- 
porary in  the  case  of  Cratinus'  Odusses  became  normal  in  the  later 
years  of  Aristophanes'  career  and  in  the  productions  of  Plato  and  of 
the  earher  poets  of  the  Middle  period.     That  a  more  reasonable 
exposition  of  the  theory  once  existed  in  Greek  documents  is  suggested 
by  the  form  which  it  assumes  in  Latin  documents  presumably  Greek 
in  origin.     A  more  exphcit  statement  of  the  case  for  the  chorus, 
for  example,  is  made  by  Horace  {A.  P.  283):    '^chorusque  turpiter 
obticuit  sublato  iure  nocendi,"     And  the  theory  in  the  large  appears 

i  It  is  not  clear  that  Platonius  intended  to  indicate  the  complete  removal  of  the 
chorus  from  the  plavs  that  he  regards  as  anticipating  the  Middle  comedy;  for  some 
mythological  plavs  the  chorus  seems  to  be  well  authenticated,  and  for  its  retention  m 
the  Middle  period  cf.  Capps.  AJA,  X  (1895).  303  ff.;  Trans.  Amer.  Phil.  Assoc, 
XXXI  (1900),  133;    Koerte,  N.  JHBB.  f.  d.  kl.  AIL,  V  (1900).  81  flf. 

2  The  extent  of  this  repression  in  the  fifth  century,  the  legal  procedure  involved 
the  particular  kind  of  criticism  prohibited  by  the  legal  procedure,  are  all  matters  of 
dispute;    for  discussion  and  full  bibliography  cf.  Kalinka,  Die  Pseudoxenophontische 
AGHNAmN   nOAITEIA,  pp.  7  ff.,  and  his  commentary  on  II.  18;    also  Starkie,  in 
his  edition  of  the  Acharnians,  excursus  II,  pp.  243  f. 


in  a  more  rational  form  in  the  Latin  versions  of  Evanthius,^  Dio- 
medes,^  and  the  Liber  Glossarum}  Here  the  absurdity  of  slaves  and 
foreigners  as  objects  of  attack  in  New  comedy  is  replaced  by  more 
discreet  generalizations  in  which  New  comedy  is  described  as  a 
portrayal  of  private  life  devoid  of  mahcious  criticism. 

II 

Acceptable  as  this  revised  version  of  the  ancient  theor}^  might  be, 
it  would  have  only  the  validity  of  partial  truth;  for  it  is  demon- 
strable that  the  exponents  of  this  theory  not  only  committed  errors, 
but  omitted  an  essential  amount  of  evidence  that  might  well  have 
contributed  to  an  understanding  of  the  transition  from  Old  to  Middle 
comedy.  For  in  many  of  the  Greek  documents,  with  remarkable 
consistency,  the  individual  poets  who  serve  as  illustrations  of  the 
normal  type  of  comedy  in  the  Old  period  are  Cratinus,  Eupolis,  and 
Aristophanes — these  three  and  no  more.^  The  concentration  upon 
this  famous  triad  of  scurrilous  poets  is  much  earher  than  the  Greek 
documents  in  question;  for  the  phrasing  in  passages  of  Horace,^ 
Quintilian,^  and  Velleius^  clearly  indicates  that  these  three  poets 
had  come  to  stand  quite  exclusively  as  representative  of  Old  comedy, 
at  least  as  early  as  the  first  century  b.c. 

We  have,  however,  unassailable  evidence  that  there  existed  in 
the  fifth  century,  quite  apart  from  these  and  other  scurrilous  poets, 
a  distinct  type  of  comedy  differing  in  form  and  content  from  the 
scurrilous  plays  usually  cultivated  by  this  triad  of  poets.  Aristotle, 
in  his  Poetics  (14496),  having  previously  stated  the  successive  changes 
in  tragedy,  professes  ignorance  of  corresponding  changes  in  comedy. 
Comedy  was  informal;  it  was  officially  recognized  only  late  in  its 
development  and  had  already  assumed  definite  form  at  the  time 
when  indi\4dual  poets  were  recorded  in  the  official  reports  of  dramatic 
contests.  In  the  midst  of  this  frank  confession  of  ignorance,  however, 
Aristotle  asserts  positively  that  the  invention  of  plots  originated  in 

1  Kaibel,  64/66  ff.  '  Ibid.,  58/166  ff.  « Ibid.,  72/15  AT. 

<Ihid.,  3/3,  3/12,  6/73-90,  15/70,  58/165,  62/23;    also  Ps.  Dionys.  Ars  rhet. 

57.19  Usener;   cf.  Kroehnert,  Canonesne  poet,  script,  artif fuerint,  Konigsberg 

(1897),  27. 

»  Serm.  i.  4.  1;   cf.  Persius  i.  123  ff. 

»x.  1.  66.  M.  16.  3. 


'0" 


! 
\ 


410 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


411 


Sicily  and  was  introduced  into  Athens  by  Crates,  who  was  the  first 
of  the  Athenians  to  abandon  scurrilous  comedy  and  to  generalize 
themes  or  plots.^     There  can,  I  think,  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
Aristotle  in  this  passage  is  conscious  of  the  antithesis  between  the 
comedy  of  his  own  day  and  the  Old  comedy.     The  general  context 
indicates  a  close  relation  between  the  iambographs  and  the  poets  of 
Old  comedy,  who   have  in  common  the  laniSiKT}  idea  and  XotSopta. 
To  Aristotle  the  generaUzed  comedy  of  his  own  day  is  opposed  and 
superior  to  this  scurrilous  comedy  (cf.  Poet  14515;  Eth.  Nic.  1128a. 
22),  and  by  imphcation  he  is  finding  in  Epicharmus  and  Crates  the 
earlier   background    of   the   generalizing   tendencies   of    Hellenistic 
comedy  and  its  unity  of  plot  as  contrasted  with  the  incoherent 
satirical  burlesque  usually  cultivated  by  poets  of  the  Old  comedy. 
The  great  difficulty  lies  in  our  determining  from  such  a  general 
statement  and  from  fragmentary  evidence  of  the  content  and  form 
both  of  Sicilian  comedy  and  its  issues  in  the  hands  of  Crates  and 
Pherecrates^  just  what  progress,  if  any,  had  been  made  near  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century  toward  either  the  non-scurrilous  myth- 
ological travesty  of  the  Middle  period  or  the  well-organized  comedy 
of  manners  that  we  find  ultimately  in  the  Roman  adaptations  of 
Greek  models,  most  of  which  were  probably  post- Aristotelian  in  date. 
From  the  tantaUzing  array  of  titles  and  fragments  of  Epicharmus' 
plays^  one  fact  immediately  emerges:   more  than  half  of  the  thirty- 
six  extant  titles  point  to  mythological  themes.     It  is,  of  course,  a 
negative  fact  of  doubtful  significance  that  the  fragments  contain  no 
evidence  of  scurrilous  attacks  on  individuals,  but  the  Doric  farce 

1  Tb  8^  fivdov^  iroiuv  'ETT^xapMOS  Kal  Up/xis-  rb  ^ikv  i^  dpxv^  ^'c  Si^eXt'aj  ^X^e-  rdu 
8^  '  \^,Jvr7crcv  Kpdrrjs  TrpCro,  ^^v  6.cpi,x,vo,  rrjs  ia,x^cKr,s  I8^as  Kad6\ov  Troiecv  X670U$  Kal 
nvBov,     (Cf .  Themistius  Or.  27.  p.  406  Dind.)     Changes  proposed  in  the  text  of  Aristotle 

•    do  not  affect  the  passage  for  our  purposes.     On  ^^^ )^}'^'^l^'f^^^''\^^^^ 

cf  Vahlen,  Sitzh.  d.  kais.  Akad.  d.  Wiss.  zu  Wien  (phil.-hist.  CI.),  L  (1865),  295-98, 
and  for  a  summary  of  various  modern  interpretations  of  the  passage  cf.  Behaghel. 
Gesch.  d.  Auffassung  d.  aristoph.  Vogel,  II,  6,  n.  2. 

2  An  anonymous  treatise  on  the  poets  of  comedy,  after  characterizing  Crates, 
says  of  Pherecrates  (Kaibel  8/33):  ....  ^NXa,«  Kpdrrra  Kal  ad  rod  m^v  \oc8opecp 
^T^^^rri,  Trpdyfiara  8i  elavyo^fieuos  Kaiua  t?.)5ok//i€i,  yevbfxepos  evperiKbs  fxvdujp. 

»The  extreme  skepticism  regarding  Epicharmus  and  his  work  (Wilamowitz, 
Textg.  d.  gr.  Lyriker,  24  ff.;  GGA  [1906],  621  ff.;  Fraenkel.  d*  mW.  et  nov  com.  gr. 
quaest.  sel  [Gottingen,  1912],  78,  n.  1)  seems  to  me  quite  uDwavTanted ;  cf.  Korte, 
Burs.-Jahresb.,  CLII  (1911),  231. 


from  which  Sicilian  comedy  is  supposed  to  develop  and  the  political 
environment  of  Epicharmus  do  not  provide  a  background  for  lam- 
pooning comedy  such  as  Athens  cultivated  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
carnival-fcomos.^  It  is  quite  possible  that  to  Athenians  of  Crates' 
time  the  mythological  plays  of  Epicharmus  furnished  a  sharp  antith- 
esis to  the  lampooning  burlesques  of  Cratinus.  And  not  only  in 
content  but  in  form;  for  mythological  themes,  whether  derived  from 
oral  tradition,  epic  poetry,  or  tragedy,  have  already  been  organized 
for  the  comic  poet,  in  earlier  popular  or  literary  tradition,  with  a 
degree  of  coherence  and  unity  that  would  stand  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  inorganic  satirical  drama  of  Athens  in  the  fifth  century. 
In  brief,  the  conditions  provide  for  a  direct  line  of  descent  from  the 
mythological  plays  of  Epicharmus  through  occasional  Athenian 
vagaries  like  the  Odusses  of  Cratinus  to  the  mythological  travesty 
that  dominated  the  comic  stage  at  Athens  in  the  later  days  of  Aris- 
tophanes and  in  the  time  of  Plato  and  his  immediate  successors. 
And  not  only  the  relative  coherence  of  m>i:hological  plot,  but  the 
absence  of  a  chorus  from  the  plays  of  Epicharmus,  so  far  as  the 
fragments  negatively  attest,  provide  the  requisite  background  for 
both  the  chorusless  Hellenistic  type  and  for  an  intermediate  form 
in  which  a  chorus,  relatively  inactive,  perhaps  appeared  with  an 
entrance  song,  but  denied  itself  parabasis  and  regularly  recurring 
chorika  mele,  as  Platonius  seems  to  assert  and  as  the  present  text  of 
the  Plutus'  may  serve  to  illustrate.  Such  an  intermediate  form  may 
have  been  a  compromise  between  the  Sicilian  and  the  normal  Attic 
form  of  comedy,  leading  the  way  to  a  chorusless  type  of  play  in  the 
New,  if  not  in  the  Middle,  period. 

But,  although  known  facts  and  conditions  could  be  harmonized 
with  such  a  theory  of  historical  continuity  in  the  development  of  a 

1  Non-scurrilous  comedy,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  use  the  term,  does  not  necessarily 
avoid  satirical  attacks  upon  social  and  political  groups  or  implicit  attacks  on 
individuals,  but  does  eliminate  explicit  lampooning  of  governmental  policies  and 
individuals,  particularly  those  prominent  in  public  life.  So,  for  example,  Epicharmus 
may  attack  the  soothsayers  (frag.  9,  cf.  Rhinthon  frag.  17  Kaibel),  and  even  in  Sicilian 
mime,  under  the  direction  of  the  tyrant  Dionysius,  Xenarchus  may  lampoon  the 
citizens  of  Rhegium  (Xenarchus  frag.  2  Kaibel).  Similar  attacks  upon  social  and 
political  groups  frequently  recur  in  Hellenistic  comedy. 

'On  the  Plutus  as  a  " neoterizing "  comedy,  cf.  Vita  Aristoph.  (Van  Leeuwen, 
Proleg.  ad  Aristoph.,  p.  173)  and  the  critical  apparatus  of  Kaibel  18/30. 


i^iii.- 


412 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


non-scurrilous  mythological  comedy,  it  would  be  difficult  from  extant 
evidence  to  resolve  plausible  theory  into  incontestable  fact.     And 
even  if  mythological  comedy  in  the  Middle  period  were  satisfactorily 
accounted  for  by  such  reasoning,  a  coherent  comedy  of  manners, 
sentiment,  and  intrigue  such  as  emerges  in  the  Middle  period  and 
becomes  dominant  in  the  New  period  would  still  remain  unexplained. 
Of  course,  as  a  mere  statement  of  possibility,  it  is  reasonable  to 
assert  that  mythological  comedy  offers  an  opening  for  the  develop- 
ment out  of  itself  of  a  comedy  of  manners,  sentiment,  and  intrigue; 
for  the  travesty  of  the  gods  and  heroes  of  myth  is  most  easily  effected 
by  reducing  these  supernatural  beings  to  the  level  of  ordinary  human 
creatures  and  by  subjecting  them  to  the  experiences  of  everyday 
life;    mythological  comedy  had  probably  anticipated  Euripides  in 
humanizing  gods  and  heroes.^     Yet  the  development  of  a  comedy  of 
manners  from  such  a  source   would  seem  somewhat  forced  and 
roundabout  if  the  rudiments  of  a  comedy  of  manners  existed  in  the 
germs  which,  transferred  to  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy  from  the 
Peloponnesus,  Epichanrms  and  others  may  have  developed  in  his 
artistic  rehabiUtation  of  earher  Dorian  elements.     It  should,  how- 
ever, be  expressly  stated  that  any  attempt  to  reconstruct  a  comedy 
of  manners  from  what  we  know  of  Epicharmus,  Crates,  and  Phere- 
crates  is  bound  to  result  merely  in  the  accumulation  of  a  number  of 
facts,  each  weak  in  itself,  and  many  of  them  resting  upon  somewhat 
dubious  hypotheses.     The  difficulty  of  differentiating  the  character- 

1  Mythological  comedy  may  of  course  be  political,  as  Cratinus'  DionusaUxandros, 
Nemesis,  and  Drapetidcs  attest,  but  in  such  cases  innuendo  rather  than  explicit  attack 
seems  to  have  been  the  rule;  and  general  social  satire  was  always  available  in  mytholo- 
gical comedy.     On  the  other  hand,  Plautus'  Ajnphitruo  may  suggest  how  easily  a 
mythological  comedy  approaches  a  comedy  of  manners,  and  how  fully  some  myths 
provide  the  essential  themes  of  intrigue,  sentiment,   confusion  of  identity.     It  is 
probable  that  mythological  comedy  provided  a  rich  variety  of  form  and  content.     The 
handling  of  the  myth  in  Cratinus'  Dionusalexandros,  as  we  now  know  from  the  hypo- 
thesis, illustrates  the  comical  perversion  of  the  story,  while  the  Aviphitnw  shows  how 
closely  the  travesty  may  keep  to  the  myth,  expanding  simply  the  theme  of  confused 
identi'tv.     And  as  regards  form,  though  the  chorus  in  Athenian  mythological  comedy 
may  have  been  relatively  inactive  in  some  cases,  yet  it  seems  to  have  maintained  its 
function  in  other  cases,  as  the  hypothesis  of  the  Dionusalexandros,  again,  perhaps 
attests.     In  brief,  though  I  think  I  may  safely  refer  to  mythological  comedy  as  non- 
scurrilous  in  the  Aristotelian  sense,  I  do  not  intend  to  ascribe  any  uniformity  in  content 
or  form  to  the  type;   it  furnished  an  opportunity  for  mitigating  or  avoiding  personal 
attack.     A  complete  and  orderly  synthesis  of  the  attainable  facts  regarding  the  form 
and  content  of  mythological  comedy  is  much  desired. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


413 


istics  of  Si(;iHan  comedy  in  general  is  due,  not  merely  to  the  scantiness 
of  material  evidence,  but  to  the  fact  that  Sicilian  comedy  and  Attic 
comedy,  in  the  opinion  of  many  modern  scholars,  were  both  dependent 
upon  Doric  farce,  the  former  being  an  embellished  form  of  Doric 
farce,  the  latter  a  combination  of  Doric  farce  with  an  indigenous 
Attic  element,  the  komos-chorus.  If  these  modern  views  are  correct, 
even  Aristophanic  comedy  is  likely  to  reveal  some  features  that 
appeared  in  the  plays  of  Epicharmus;^  and  if  we  are  searching  for 
a  non-scurrilous  type  of  Old  Attic  comedy  that  existed  before  and 
alongside  of  Aristophanic  comedy,  but  distinct  from  most  of  it  in 
form  and  content,  it  becomes  peculiarly  hazardous  to  stress  the  broad 
characteristics  of  Doric  farce  as  possibly  continued  through  Epichar- 
mus, Crates,  and  Pherecrates  to  the  time  of  the  Middle  comedy  and 
later.  Only  the  precise  statement  of  Aristotle  leads  me,  with  this 
admission  of  the  difficulty  and  the  hazard,  to  emphasize  in  the 
evidence  of  Doric  farce,  of  Epicharmus,  and  of  Crates  and  Phere- 
crates those  features  which  conceivably  might  foreshadow  distin- 
guishing traits  of  a  comedy  of  manners  in  the  Middle  period. 

Doric  farce  in  the  Peloponnesus  may  well  have  been  hardly  more 
than  a  loosely  connected  series  of  scenes,  a  compromise  between 
mime  and  drama.^  The  statement  in  Athenaeus  G21c?,  on  the 
authority  of  Sosibius,  regarding  an  early  Spartan  7rat5td  performed 
by  a  dikelistes  suggests  mime  rather  than  fully  developed  drama; 
and  the  scenes  briefly  covered  under  the  captions  *'  men  stealing  fruit  '^ 
and  "a  foreign  physician,"  with  a  quotation  from  a  comedy  of 
Alexis  in  the  Middle  period  to  illustrate  what  a  foreign  physician 
might  say  in  such  a  iraidia,  may  have  been  independent  mimes  rather 
than  parts  of  a  larger  play.  The  bracketing  of  ''men  steaHng  fruit" 
with  a  foreign  physician  weakens  the  force  of  the  passage  for  our 
purposes,  but  the  physician  as  a  character,^  the  impHed  differentia- 
tion of  foreign  and  native  professional  types,  and  the  use  of  a  passage 
of  Middle  comedy  for  illustrative  purposes  should  at  least  arrest  the 

^  Cf.  von  Salis,  de  Doriensium  ludorum  in  comoedia  Att.  vestigiis,  Basle,  1905. 
2  Cf.  Thiele,  .V.  JHBB  f.  d.  kl.  Alt.,  IX  (1902),  411  ff. 

'  The  passage  of  Alexis  seems  to  point  to  the  use  of  dialect,  whether  native  or 
professional;  a  physician  is  generally  supposed  to  be  the  speaker  in  Crates,  frag.  41, 
and  there  uses  Doric;  cf.  von  Salis,  op.  cit.,  22  f.;  the  phj'sician  appears  in  late 
mimes  according  to  Choricius  V.  4  {Rev.  de  phil.,  I  [18771,  212). 


414 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


attention  of  anybody  who  is  searching  for  possible  anticipations  of 
the  professional  types  of  Hellenistic  comedy  in  earlier  dramatic 
forms.  In  harmony  with  this  evidence  of  professional  types  and 
also  of  the  discrimination  of  foreign  and  native  roles  stands  the  state- 
ment regarding  masks  used  in  the  farce  of  Peloponnesian  Megara: 
a  native  and  a  foreign  cook  were  provided  with  distinguishing 
masks  and  type-names,  Maeson  and  Tettix.^  Whether  these  and 
other  professional  types,^  if  there  were  such,  were  taken  over  by 
Epicharmus  from  his  home  in  Peloponnesian  Megara  to  his  Sicilian 
habitat  and  there  developed  in  a  comedy  of  manners,  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing.  There  is  hardly  valid  evidence,  but  only  a  priori 
assumption  that  any  plays  of  Epicharmus  were  comedies  of  types,  of 
manners,  of  private  life,  such  as  we  find  in  the  Hellenistic  period. 

We  must  certainly  beware  of  ascribing  to  Epicharmus  any  strict 
uniformity  in  the  content  and  form  of  his  dramatic  poems  f  the 
general  word  *' comedy"  is  improperly  applied  to  them;  some  of 
them  may  have  been  mimes.  Among  these  mimes  probably  belong 
the  ''debates,"  Fa  Kal  Qakaaaa  and  Aoyos  Kal  Ao7ij^a;  these  titles  do 
not  suggest  anything  more  than  a  dramatized  debate  constituting 
the  whole  of  a  dramatic  poem.  W^e  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  two  debates  were  smaller  parts  of  a  larger  drama  and  corresponded 
to  the  agones  of  Aristophanic  comedy;  such  debates,  however,  might 
easily  become  parts  of  a  larger  whole,  and  one  may  properly  find 
analogues,  not  in  the  agones  of  Aristophanic  comedy,  but  in  the 

1  For  the  evidence  and  discussion,  cf.  Kaibel  76;  Schneidewin,  Coniect.  crit., 
120  ff.;  Rankin,  The  Rdle  of  the  Mageiroi,  etc.,  13  ff. ;  Robert,  Die  Masken  d. 
neuer.  att.  Komodie,  12  ff.,  71  ff.  The  comic  effects  secured  by  Cratinus  in  his 
Odusses  may  be  due  to  a  fusion  of  the  mageiros  and  of  the  epic  Cyclops  (cf.  Tanner, 
Trans.  Amer.  Phil.  Assoc,  XLVI  [1915],  176). 

2  Modern  scholars  usually  find  the  background  of  the  professional  types  of  Hellen- 
istic comedy  in  corresponding  figures  in  the  episodic  scenes  of  Aristophanic  comedy. 
So  far  as  professional  roles  in  later  comedy  are  often  inorganic,  there  is  some  analogy, 
but  as  regards  the  particular  professional  types  employed,  the  cook,  physician,  and 
parasite  of  Doric  farce  and  Epicharmus  offer  a  more  precise  background  than  anything 
in  Aristophanes.  The  passage  of  Athenaeus  (659a)  which  seems  to  refer  to  Megarian 
farce  the  mask  of  the  cook  also  mentions  a  mask  of  a  depdirujv.  The  slave  is  too  general 
a  role  to  be  used  for  discriminating  varieties  of  comedy,  though  the  Phluax-vases  may 
provide  evidence  for  Doric  farce  (von  Salis,  op.  cit.,  23  ff.).  It  is  the  slave  who 
makes  comedy  out  of  tragedy  according  to  the  prologue  of  the  Amphitruo;  it  is  interest- 
ing to  find  him  emerging  into  the  foreground  in  the  later  plays  of  Aristophanes;  on 
his  role  in  Old  comedy  cf.  Zuretti,  Riv.  di  filoL,  XXXI  (1903),  .46  ff. 

«  Cf.  Thiele,  op.  cit.,  418,  who  argues  more  from  titles  than  I  should  venture  to  do. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


415 


discussion  between  the  two  Aoyoi  in  the  Clouds  and  in  a  faded  form 
in  the  implied  opposition  of  Wealth  and  Poverty  in  the  agon  of  the 
Plutus  (487  ff.).^  Among  these  debates  of  Epicharmus  there  is  no 
valid  reason  for  including  the  'EXwls  fj  UXovtos  ;  neither  the  title  nor 
the  fragments  indicate  the  nature  of  the  piece;  from  it  are  quoted 
the  only  fragments  that  may  bear  upon  professional  roles  in  Epichar- 
mus. These  two  fragments  (34,  35)  are  spoken  by  a  character  whom 
Athenaeus  (235e)  describes  in  the  words:  **  Carystus  the  Pergamene,  in 
his  work  Uepl  didaaKaXuiop,  says  that  the  parasite,  as  we  now  call  him, 
was  first  invented  by  Alexis,  forgetting  that  Epicharmus  introduced 
him  in  his  'EXtti?  rj  IIXoDros."  Accepting  the  correction,  we  note 
again  the  post  hoc  in  the  combination  of  Epicharmus  and  Alexis 
corresponding  to  the  quotation  of  Alexis  in  Athenaeus  62 Id  to  illus- 
trate what  the  foreign  physician  in  Doric  farce  might  say.^  In  the 
second  place  we  must  observe  that  Athenaeus'  statement  implies 
that  Epicharmus  did  not  call  the  character  a  parasite  f  nor  have  we 
evidence  that  the  parasite,  under  that  name,  existed  in  contemporary 
society.  Thirdly,  as  regards  technique,  we  should  not  overlook  the 
fact  that  Athenaeus  distinctly  says  that  the  character  in  speaking 
these  verses  was  answering  inquiries — that  is,  the  speech  was  not 
in  the  form  of  monologue  as  corresponding  speeches  of  parasites  in 
Hellenistic  comedy  are  likely  to  be;   nor  can  we  determine  the 


»  Cf .  the  same  opposition  in  Pherecrates'  Persai.  The  debates  in  Epicharmus 
seem  to  me  to  be  peculiarly  rhetorical,  as  we  might  expect  them  to  be  in  the  home 
of  rhetoric.  The  figures  in  the  debate  are  abstract.  The  immediate  issues  and 
connections  are  to  be  found  in  the  pastoral  debate,  in  Callimachus'  poem  on  the 
contest  between  the  olive  and  the  laurel,  in  the  Mortis  et  Vitae  ludicium  and 
Cocus  et  Pistor.  The  vigorous  action  and  the  live  questions  involved  in  Aristophanic 
agones  might  have  developed,  under  the  special  conditions  of  Athenian  life  in  the  fifth 
century,  from  the  placid  debates  of  Epicharmus,  but  I  should  more  easily  admit 
a  common  origin  of  the  two  things  than  a  development  directly  from  mere  debate 
into  agon;  such  a  common  source  might  perhaps  be  found  in  the  religious  practices 
discussed  by  Usener,  Archiv  f.  Religions wiss.,  VII  (1904),  297  ff.,  313.  Conceiv- 
ably, Luxuria  and  Inopia  in  the  prologue  of  Plautus'  Trinummus  are  a  much  faded 
relic  of  the  debate  in  Epicharmus,  and  abstractions  like  Agnoia  and  Auxilium  in  the 
prologues  of  New  comedy  may  weakly  reflect  the  interest  of  Epicharmus  in  allegorical 
figures  instead  of  being  merely  casual  variations  of  the  usual  divinity-proZo^/us.  Sieck- 
mann's  extravagant  theory  of  the  debate  in  Epicharmus  {de  com.  Att.  primordiis, 
Gottingen,  1906)  is  exploded  by  Siiss,  BPW  (1907),  1377. 

*  On  the  general  connection  between  Alexis  and  Epicharmus  cf.  Kaibel  in  PWRE, 
I,  1470. 

•But  cf.  Giese,  de  parasiti  persona  (Berlin,  1908),  5,  n.  1. 


416 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


organic  relation  of  the  speaker  to  the  rest  of  the  action.  But  with 
all  these  reservations  the  fragments  which  Athenaeus  quotes,  and 
especially  frag.  35,  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  speaker  many  of  the 
stock  themes  of  the  later  parasite,  as  olkKtjtos,  yeXcoTOTOLos,  KoXa^,  and 
poverty-stricken,  returning  after  the  banquet  besotted  and  unat- 
tended, mauled  by  the  poUce,  to  his  rough  shake-down.^  If  the 
character  in  Epicharmus  played  only  such  a  role  as  the  parasitic 
slaves  of  Demos  in  Aristophanes'  Knights,  or  the  parasites  of  Eupolis' 
Kolakes,  or  of  Aristophanes'  Tagenistai  he  loses  much  of  his  sig- 
nificance for  our  present  purpose,  but  in  view  of  Aristotle's  state- 
ment we  are  justified  in  pointing  out  the  possible  import  of  the  two 

fragments. 

The  evidence  of  a  comedy  of  manners  in  Sicily  is  not  increased  by 
consideration  of  the  extant  titles  of  Epicharmus'  plays.  One  may 
often  identify  mythological  comedy  and  the  debate  in  Epicharmus 
by  the  title,  but  a  supposition  that  the  Agrostinos  or  the  Megaris"  is 
necessarily  a  comedy  of  private  life  can  never  with  our  present 
material  be  more  than  idle  hypothesis.  A  vague  argument  from 
probability  may  be  easily  constructed  by  anybody  who  notes  the 
ob\aous  portrayal  of  private  life  in  contemporary  mimes  of  Sophron, 
or  who  cares  to  stress  the  scenes  from  private  Ufe  often  recognizable 
in  the  Phluax-vases  of  Southern  Italy,  assuming  that  these  reflect  a 
form  of  Doric  farce  which  Epicharmus  himself  elaborated  ;^  and  one 
may  fairly  observe  that  the  Atellan  play  in  Italy,  with  its  obvious 
points  of  contact  with  Hellenistic  comedy,  is  supposed  by  many 
modern  scholars  to  have  developed  from  the  same  elements  of  Doric 
farce  which  were  incorporated  in  the  Phluakes  and  embelHshed  by 


iFor  parallel  themes  in  Hellenistic  comedy,  cf.  Giese,  op.  cit.,  8,  nn.  1,  2.  That 
Crates  frag.  3  was  spoken  by  a  parasite  is  merely  an  interesting  guess,  particularly 
interesting  because  the  fragment  is  from  the  Geitones,  in  which  (cf.  below  p.  420)  Crates, 
after  Epicharmus,  exhibited  drunkards  on  the  stage.  There  is  some  general  resem- 
blance between  Epich.  frag.  35  and  the  epigram  of  Posidippus  on  the  parasite  which 
I  have  interpreted  in  CP,  V  (1910),  494  fif.,  so  far  as  the  difficulties  of  the  homeward 
journey  are  concerned.  For  an  extremely  skeptical  view  of  the  evidence,  cf.  Fraenkel, 
op.  cit.,  78,  n.  1. 

2  Having  no  faith  in  titles  as  evidence,  I  refer  to  von  Salis,  op.  cit.,  51  ff.  for  a 
list  of  titles  which  Epicharmus  has  in  common  with  poets  of  later  comedy. 

» The  contrary  view  that  the  vases,  being  from  the  third  century,  illustrate  a 
drama  influenced  by  Hellenistic  comedy  would  vitiate  such  evidence. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


417 


Epicharmus.^  In  general,  it  would  facilitate  our  understanding  of 
Hellenistic  comedy  and  its  background  if  we  w^ere  in  a  position  to 
prove  that  back  of  Epicharmus  and  of  the  Atellan  play  and  of  the 
Phluakes  lay  mythological  and  biological  mimes  which  the  Sicilian 
poet  had  developed  from  isolated  or  loosely  connected  scenes  into 
coherent  plays  of  manners  and  mythology,  perhaps  shorter  in  compass 
than  the  plays  of  either  Old  or  New  comedy.  But  of  the  mime  in 
any  early  period  it  is  difficult  to  recover  clear  traces,  least  of  all  to 
discern  what  relation  it  bore  to  the  comedy,  whether  Dorian  or 
Attic,  which  so  often  shows  traits  in  common  with  it.  Personally 
I  find  it  difficult  to  regard  as  purely  casual  and  accidental  the  transi- 
tion w^hich  Athenaeus  makes  to  his  account  of  the  beginnings  of 
comedy,  particularly  of  the  mimic  entertainments  of  the  Spartan 
dikelistes.  The  whole  passage,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  imbedded 
in  an  account  of  musical  entertainments.  Before  passing  to  the 
KCjOjjLLKrj  iraidLCL  of  the  Spartan  dikelist,  as  described  by  Sosibius, 
Athenaeus,  discussing  the  musical  mime,  quotes  Aristoxenus  for  the 
assertion  that  rrjv  fxh  IXapcodlav  aefjLPrjp  omav  wapa  rrjv  rpaycDdlav  elpau, 
T-qv  be  luLayccdlap  irapa  r-qv  KCxJiJLOjdlap,  and  continues:  TroXkaKLs  8e  ol 
jjLaycfdol  /cat  kcoiilkcls  viroOeaets  Xa^opres  viroKpldiqcrav  Kara  ttjv  ibiav 
aycoyrjp  /cat  dLadecnv.  Then  briefly  explaining  the  etymology  of 
ixayccdia,  he  passes  at  once  to  the  KcofiLKr)  TratSta  of  Sparta  and  ulti- 
mately to  the  heckling  phallic  chorus  from  which  Aristotle  derives 
Attic  comedy.  Magody  is  Ionic  rather  than  Doric,  but  it  is  only  a 
form  of  the  pan-Hellenic  mime  and  the  roles  which  the  magodist 
assumed,  vTroKpiv6p.evos  wore  fxh  ywoLKas  [/cat]  jjlolxovs  /cat  jjLaaTpoirovSj 
TTore  5e  avhpa  iJLedvopra  /cat  ewl  kcjuop  Trapayivbjievov  wpos  rrjv  epoipLevqv 
bring  us  into  the  range  of  characters  and  materials  that  would  help 
much  toward  a  reconstruction  of  the  background  of  Hellenistic 
comedy,  if  we  could  once  demonstrate  that  any  of  the  plays  of 
Epicharmus,  contemporary  of  Sophron,  were  variously  developed 
forms  of  the  mime.^     But  as  it  is,  the  titles  of  Epicharmus'  plays 

»  Cf.  Marx,  PWRE,  s.  v.  Atellana. 

*  As  Hiller  has  pointed  out  (Rh.  Mus.,  XXX  [1875],  72)  one  should  not  hastily 
infer  from  Aristoxenus  that  magody  developed  later  than  the  comedy  with  which  it 
has  characters  and  themes  in  common.  The  post-Christian  remains  of  mime  are 
always  open  to  the  charge  of  being  influenced  by  comedy,  but  they  read  like  popular, 
unliterary  productions.     The  certamen  between  sailors  on  river  boats  and  sailors  on 


418 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


lend  greater  plausibility  to  a  theory  of  the  influence  of  mythological 

than  of  biological  mime.  ,    .    o-  -i        j 

With  substantial  evidence  of  a  mythological  comedy  m  Sicily  and 
hardly  more  than  vague  surmisings  of  a  comedy  of  manners  we  turn 
to  Crates  and  Pherecrates.     The  scanty  evidence  of  their  dramatic 
work  only  negatively  supports  Aristotle's  statement;  the  fragments 
are  devoid  of  scurrilous  attack;  the  titles  are  often  non-committal, 
but  they  certainly  suggest  no  emphasis  upon  mythological  subject- 
matter  and  only  by  the  incautious  may  they  be  used  to  demonstrate 
a  coinedv  of  manners.     But  outside  the  unknown  and  unknowable 
of  titles  and  fragments  there  lies  a  tangible  bit  of  evidence  that  seems 
to  corroborate  in  a  general  way  Aristotle's  sharp  discrimination  of 
Crates'  work  from  the  less  organic  scurrilous  comedy  of  the  fifth 
century      In  the  notable  document  which  Aristophanes  gives  us 
in  the  parabasis  of  the  Knights,  recounting  the  history  of  comedy 
down  to  his  own  dav,  the  characterization  of  Crates,  following  the 
account  of  Magnes,  with  his  interest  in  fantastic  plays,  and  of 
Cratinus  as  the  browbeater  of  contemporary  wrongdoers,  is  highly 
significant  in  comparison  with  Aristotle's  statement.     Unfortunately 
Aristophanes'  mvsterious   figurative   language  is  as  tantalizing  as 
Aristotle's  broad  generalization;   yet  the  two  statements  are,  in  a 
somewhat     negative    sense,     harmonious.     Crates,     according    to 
Aristophanes,'  served  a  lunch  to  the  audience  at  slight  expense; 
he  fashioned  the  neatest  conceits  in  the  driest  style.^     His  reward 
was  the  wrath  of  the  audience  and  hard  knocks;  yet  he  smgle-handed 
held  his  ground,  sometimes  failing,  sometimes  succeeding.    Naturally 

ocean-faring  vessels,  the  opposition  of  sober  man  and  drunkard   in  late  n;^™^^  "«  |° 
spirit  and  form,  though  not  in  time,  near  the  debates  of  Ep.charmus  (cf_  the  fifth 
edition  of  Crusius'  Herondas  134-39).     .\nd  the  ChanHon  (Crusius    thtd.,  101  ff 
sltuld  be  more  significant  to  any  student  of  Hellenisfc  comedy  than  Eunp.des 
Iph.  Taur.  and  Helena. 

1  ol'as  5^  Kpdrrjs  Spyks  vfxu>u  i)vi<Tx^ro  KaX  <TTv<t>e\iyfiovi, 
8s  dTTb  (T/jLLKpas  da-rrdvi^s  vp-ds  dpiffri^uiu  diriTrep-Tev, 
dirb  Kpap.^ordrov  (Trbp^aros  p-drrwu  d(TTeu>Tdras  iirivoias-^ 
XoDtos  M^.rot  p,6uos  dur^pKec,  rork  p^kv  irijrru^v  rork  5'  ovxl  [537-40]. 
2  On  the  interpretation  of  d^b  Kpap^^ordrov  arbparos  p.drru.u  I  have  ^o  convictions 
but  whether  the  adjective  is  connected  with  Kpdp^y),  of  a  plain  fare,  or  with  ^pd/i^os.  of 
a  dry  style,  the  phrase  reinforces  the  meaning  of  dpc.r/r-;  for  various  views,  compare^ 
not  only  the  commentators,  but  Wilamowitz.  ^-'^^^^^ ^^'^^^^[^f^^  ^''  ""^  '^' 
recent  suggestions  discussed  by  Korte.  Burs.-Jahresb.,  CLII  (1911).  Z^6. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


419 


the  interpretation  of  the  passage  is  much  disputed.  A  possible  clue 
to  the  main  thought  is  contained  in  Aristophanes  frag.  333,^  in  which 
Crates  is  caricatured  again  for  what  we  may  suspect  is  an  example 
of  his  ''conceits''  (cf.  Crates  frag.  29),  and  the  adverb  citovoos  seems 
to  be  applied  with  a  suggestion  of  the  slight  outlay  of  intellectual 
effort  which,  from  Aristophanes'  standpoint,  was  expended  by  Crates 
in  his  comedies.  To  this  meager  mental  expenditure,  I  think, 
Aristophanes  refers  in  the  ''lunch  at  small  expense"  in  the  Knights. 
But  that  Aristophanes  has  in  mind  a  tamer  non-scurrilous  comedy 
which,  as  compared  with  the  virulent  abuse  in  Cratinus,  seems  to 
him  a  lunch  at  slight  expense  is  by  no  means  clear;  he  may  be  refer- 
ring only  to  such  details  of  Crates'  plays  as  he  attacks  in  frag.  333, 
in  which,  apparently,  a  mere  phrase  or  conceit  of  Crates  is  ironically 
handled  in  figurative  language  that  is  not  unUke  the  figure  employed 
in  Knights  538.^  The  value,  therefore,  of  the  passage  of  the  Knights 
lies,  in  my  opinion,  simply  in  the  sharp  differentiation  of  Crates 
from  the  other  comic  poets,  not  in  the  details  of  the  description, 
which  only  by  hasty  and  rash  interpretation  can  be  made  to  refer 
precisely  to  a  non-scurrilous  comedy.' 

Outside  of  the  Knights  (and  the  scholia  ad  loc,  to  which  I  sliall 
refer  later)  only  a  scrap  or  two  of  external  evidence  remains,  and 
that,  again,  is  tantalizing.  A  recently  discovered  commentary  on 
Aristophanes  {Papiri  Greco-Egizii,  ii.  9)  contains  the  words:  (Trpcoros 
8)e  6  Kpar{r})s  {eYLarj {y ay eu),  then  a  gap,  and  KaTrriKiho^v  in  the  next 
sentence.  This  may  have  ascribed  to  Crates  the  introduction  of 
characters  Hke  the  KawnXldes,  and  the  general  drift  may  have  loosely 
corresponded  to  the  assertion  in  an  anonymous  writer  on  comedy 


1  The  text  of  the  fragment  (cf.  Kaibel's  Athenaeus  117c)  is  unintelligible  in  part, 
though  the  general  meaning  is  clear.  Comedy  is  represented,  ironically,  as  furnishing 
/i^7a  ^pw/Lta  at  the  time  of  Crates;  and  the  diet  supplied  by  Comedy  in  his  time  is 
illustrated  by  rdpixos  i\i(pdvTLvov,  the  whimsical  phrase  of  Crates. 

2  The  resemblance  lies  between  the  lunch  in  the  Knights  and  the  p4ya  ^p^fia 
furnished  by  Comedy  according  to  the  ironic  statement  of  the  fragment. 

3  I  admit,  of  course,  that  with  Aristotle's  statement  in  mind  one  easily  yields 
to  the  temptation  of  pressing  the  meaning  of  the  passage  of  the  Knights,  but  in  view 
of  frag.  333  I  think  that  it  is  in  the  interest  of  conservative  interpretation  to  avoid 
such  large  inferences  as  Neil,  ad  loc,  draws  in  saying  that  Crates  represents  "a  fore- 
shadowing of  the  New  comedy"  and  that  "dffrelos  would  especially  suit  the  Athenian 
Terence." 


420 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


(Kaibel,  7/30),  who  says  of  Crates:  Kal  Trpcoros  fxeSvopras  Iv  KOJ^Mq. 
Traprjyayev.  The  same  fact  is  reported  in  Athenaeus  (429a),  who  in  a 
trivial  discussion  of  the  use  of  drunkards  in  the  drama,  after  con- 
tending that  Aeschylus,  not  Euripides,  Trpcoros  ....  rapriyaye  ttjv 
TOiv  iJLedv6vT0)v  oypiv  els  rpayoihiav,  continues:  ay voovai  re  ol  Xeyopres 
TTpCiTov  'EmxapfJiOP  ewi  ttju  (^i^V^W  Tapayayelv  nedvovra,  ixeB'  bv  Kpdrryra 
iv  VdrodL.  Quite  apart  from  the  vaUdity  of  such  accounts  of  evpwara, 
the  use  of  drunkards  does  not  necessarily  point  to  any  specific  type 
of  comedy,  but  we  may  at  least  observe  in  Athenaeus  the  post  hoc 
that  again  binds  Epicharmus  and  Crates;  it  is  not,  however,  stated 

as  a  propter  hoc} 

Passing  to  internal  evidence,  we  find  that  neither  the  titles  nor 
the  fragments  of  Crates'  and  Pherecrates'  plays  have  more  than 
negative  value.     The  statement  of  Suidas  regarding  Crates  that 
there  were  two  poets  of  the  name  attaches  some  doubt  to  the  author- 
ship of  the  titles  and  fragments  referred  to  him.     Clearly,  however, 
neither  Aristophanes  nor  Aristotle  was  conscious  of  any  ambiguity 
in   referring   to    Crates.     Of   the    Thesauros   and   the    Philarguros, 
titles  which  seem  to  some  indicative  of  a  comedy  of  manners,  we 
have  no  fragments.     Meineke,^  judging  from  the  titles,  immediately 
denies  the  authorship  of  Crates,  and  ascribes  the  plays  to  the  period 
of  Middle  or  New  comedy,  a  rather  singular  procedure  in  view  of 
Aristotle's  statement.     But  only  a  hasty  critic  will  argue  much  from 
such  titles.     Plays  with  the  title  Thesauros,  to  be  sure,  were  written 
by  half  a  dozen  Hellenistic  poets,  and  Philemon's  play  of  that  name 
was    the    model    of    Plautus'    Trinummus.     Certainly    Philarguros 
would  be  a  fitting  title  for  a  character  comedy  such  as  suggested 
Plautus'  Aulularia.     But  Crates'  Thesauros  may  in  plot  have  more 
nearly  resembled  Aristophanes'   Plutus   (in  this  case,   perhaps,   of 
some  interest  as  an  example  of  the  type  of  Middle  comedy),^ and  we 
cannot  deny  that  cfxXapyvpos  may  mean  ' '  grafter ' '  as  well  as  ' '  miser, ' ' 
and  that  the  play  was  as  Ukely  to  be  a  scurrilous  satire  as  a  character 
comedy.^    These  possibilities  I  mention  simply  to  justify  my  refusal 

1  The  evidence  clearly  does  not  warrant  any  suggestion  of  connection  between 
the  drunkards  in  Crates'  plays  and  the  kw^ios  /xedv6vTUJv  of  Menander. 

2  FCG,  I,  64.  •   u         . 

3  The  role  played  by  Thesauros  in  Lucian's  Timon  (compared  with  Antiphanes 
Timon)  strengthens  the  suggestion  that  Crates'  Thesauros  might  have  resembled  the 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


421 


to  argue  from  titles  alone.  Of  mythological  comedy,  which  is  the 
most  completely  authenticated  material  of  Epicharmus'  plays,  Crates 
has  no  clear  trace  save  in  the  title  Dionusos.  Little  can  safely  be 
argued  of  the  content  of  the  plays  from  the  fragments;  the  Theria 
presented  a  picture  of  Schlaraffenland  in  which  the  table  set  itself, 
wine  poured  itself,  and  the  like.  This  may  have  been  social  satire 
rather  than  personal  abuse ;  if  so,  one  may  well  note  that  such  a  type 
of  comedy  might  fall  within  the  range  of  Aristotle's  reference  to 
generalized  comedy.  Such  criticism  of  social  conditions,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  personal  abuse,  is  more  fully  suggested  by  the  titles 
of  Pherecrates'  plays;  frag.  155  proves  that  this  poet  was  not  entirely 
averse  to  personal  attack,  but  otherwise  the  fragments  contain  no 
personal  criticism.  Titles  like  Agrioi,  Metalles,  Krapataloi,  Murnie- 
kanthropoi,  in  combination  with  fragments  and  external  evidence, 
point  to  an  interest  in  Utopian  sociological  comedy.  Anthropher- 
aklesj  PseudheracleSj  Cheiron  might  have  been  mythological.  Tantal- 
izing possibilities  of  a  comedy  of  manners  are  contained  in  three 
titles,  'EwiXTjajjioop  rj  GaXarra,  Korianno,  Petale;  for  there  is  some  reason 
to  think  that  Korianno,  and  possibly  Thalatta  and  Petale,  were 
names  of  courtezans.^ 

Baffling  as  the  search  is  for  positive  confirmation  of  the  facts 
expressed  in  Aristotle's  statement,  I  think  that  we  may  safely  say 
that  his  characterization  of  Crates  w^as  part  of  a  larger  and  consistent 
theory  which  found  in  SiciUan  comedy,  and  in  occasional  imitations 
of  it  in  Athens  in  the  fifth  centur>%  a  substantial  foreshadowing  of 
Hellenistic  comedy.  The  scholia  on  the  passage  of  the  Knights 
already  discussed  are  the  usual  mass  of  error,  idle  fancy,  and  possible 
fact.     One  of  them,  erroneously  referring  to  Crates  as  a  tragic  poet, 

Plutus  in  a  general  way  rather  than  any  such  play  as  Philemon  wrote.  On  (f)i\dpyvpos 
in  the  sense  of  "grafter"  cf.  Platonius'  account  of  comedy  (Kaibel  3/8),  where 
<pi\dpyvpoi  is  obviously  covered  by  the  xP'J/xara  (ri;\X^7oi;<rtj'  i^  ddiKias  of  Kaibel  5/49. 

1  The  evidence  in  the  case  of  Thalatta  and  Petale  is  hardly  valid,  that  for  Korianno 
is  more  substantial;  cf.  Meineke,  FCG,  I,  82,  83,  86  n,  29.  The  bibulous  women, 
tlie  quarrel  of  father  and  son,  both  perhaps  in  love  with  the  same  courtesan,  are 
suggestive  details  in  the  Korianno.  That  Anaxandrides  (Suidas  s.v.)  was  the  first  to 
introduce  into  comedy  Ipwras  Kal  irapQivwv  (pdopds  is  contradicted  by  what  is  reported 
of  Aristophanes'  Kokalos  and,  in  general,  statements  in  which  evpT^fmra  are  ascribed 
to  Hellenistic  comic  poets  only  substantiate  the  frequent  recurrence  in  their  plays  of 
certain  characters  and  themes.  On  the  Agrioi  cf.  Hoffmann,  Ad  antiq.  com.  historiam 
symholae,  Berlin,  1910. 


422  Henry  W.  Prescott 

ascribes  to  him  b\i^b<jr^X^  iromara,  and   another   begins   cTt^.Kpk 
iiroiei  .  .  These  references  to  the  smaller  compass   of   Crates 

productions  may  be  idle  inferences  from  the  ''lunch  at  small  expense'^ 
in  the  text  of  Aristophanes,^  but  a  play  without  a  chorus  or  with  a 
relatively  inactive  chorus  would  naturally  be  appreciably  shorter 
than  the  normal  play  of  Aristophanes.     The  concluding  sentence, 
however  of  the  second  schoHum  is  worthy  of  more  serious  attention. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Aristophanes  in  the  text  distinctly  says 
that  Crates  endured  the  anger  of  the  audience  and  rough  knocks 
at  the  hands  of  the  spectators,  though  the  younger  poet  admits  that 
occasional  success  in  the  dramatic  competition  rewarded  Crates 
efforts      This  second  scholium  is  sufficiently  at  variance  with  Aris- 
tophanes' statement  to  warrant  an  inference  that  the  scholiast  has 
information  other  than  that  furnished  by  Aristophanes;  the  schohum 
reads:    anLKpa  IttoUl  Kal  trepwe  ro^s  aKpoaras,  ypk<t>c^p  V^ia.     Aris- 
tophanes has  certainly  not  emphasized  the  entertainment  furnished 
the  audience  by  Crates.     Now  in  a  familiar  passage  of  Aristotle  s 
Ethics  (1128a)  the  philosopher  distinguishes  buffoonery  from  true 
wit -2   the  buffoon  aims  only  to  excite  laughter  rather  than  to  say 
what  is  seemly  and  to  avoid  paining  the  object  of  his  ridicule.     Later 
Aristotle  illustrates  the  difference  by  an  appeal  to  the  Old  and  the 
New  comedies,  meaning  by  the  latter  what  we  call  the  Middle 
comedy,  and   expresses  the   thought  which  underhes   the  ancient 
theory  of  comedy  found  in  the  late  Greek  documents  summarized 
above  viz.;  that  Old  comedy  found  t6  ye\olov  in  aiaxpoXoyla,  New 
(Middle)  comedy  in  Mvoia.     He  then  raises  the  question  how  we 
are  to  define  seemly  jesting  in  these  words:    Torepov  ovv  rov  ev 
aK^^TTOvra  dpiariov  re?  Uy^LV  fxv  awpeirrj  iXevOeplc^,  r)  t<p  ,^  Xv^dv  rov 
Uovovra  ^  Kal  r^-;   ^  Kal  rb  yt  tolovtov  abpiarov'    aWo  yap  aXXcj; 
H^vo-TiTov  re  Kai  ^iSv.     The  sharp  antithesis  between  t6  Xuttcc^  and  to 
ripireLv,  as  coterminous  with  the  differentiation  between  al<TXPo\oyla 

.  The  Liber  Glossarum  (Kaibel.  72/14)  ascribes  to  the  earliest  writers  of  Old  comedy 
plays  not  over  300  verses  in  length,  a  statement  that  is  discredited  by  Kaibel  Uie 
Prolegomena."  46,  n.  1  and  exploited  by  Sieckmann.  op.  cit.,  24.  as  harmomzmg  with 
Birt's  conjectural  estimate  of  the  length  of  Epicharmus'  plays. 

.Cornford,  The  Origin  of  Attic  Comedy,  218  n.  1.  briefly  notes  the  relation 
between  theVo  passages  (and  Evanthius.  .uoted  above),  but  Hendrickson.  in  dealm^ 
with  Roman  satire,  had  already  made  full  use  of  the  relevant  material,  of.  AJP,  XV 
(1894).  1  ff ;  XXI  (1900).  121  S;  especially  XV  (1894).  25  and  nn,  1.  2. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


423 


and  xmbvoia,  and  between  Old  and  Middle  comedy  warrants  us, 
I  think,  in  suspecting  that  the  schoHast  on  the  Knights  in  his  strange 
emphasis  on  erepTre  and  r]bia  is  dependent  upon  just  such  a  differ- 
entiation of  Old  and  Middle  comedy  as  Aristotle  makes,  and  by 
referring  to  Crates  as  interested  primarily  in  to  Tepirtiv  the  scholiast 
may  be  echoing  part  of  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  matter  by  Aristotle 
in  which  not  only  was  Middle  comedy  differentiated  from  the  Old 
in  the  terms  of  the  Ethics,  but  Crates  was  represented  as  anticipating 
the  Middle  comedy  in  the  terms  of  the  Poetics. 

This  theory  seems  to  emerge  in  other  ancient  documents.     An 
anonymous   writer   on    comedy    (Kaibel    7/28-8/35)    agrees    with 
•Aristotle  in  ascribing  non-scurrilous  comedy  to  Crates  and  adds 
Pherecrates  to  the  list.     In  describing  Crates  he  uses  the  phrase 
iravv  yeXolos  Kal  IXapos  yevbfievos.     The  adjective  IXapbs  is  in  implied 
antithesis  to  avaTrjpbs,  wLKpos,  and  the  Uke,  descriptive  of  the  normal 
poets  of  Old  comedy.     This  particular  antithesis  is  prominent  in  the 
Latin  documents,  which,  we  have  already  remarked,  offer  a  more 
reasonable  statement  of  Greek  theory  than  the  Greek  documents, 
when  they  come  to  differentiate  the  New  comedy  from  the  Old. 
So  in  the  Liber  Glossarum  (Kaibel  72/15)  the  adjective  IXapos  applied 
to  Crates  is  recalled  in  the  sentence:   ''postea  autem  omissa  nialedi- 
cendi  Ubertate  privatorum  hominum  vitam  cum  hilaritate  imita- 
bantur,  adinonentes   quid   adpetendum   quidve    cavendum   esset." 
And  r]hia  ypacfyojv  apphed  to  Crates  by  the  scholiast  on  the  Knights 
is  recalled  when  we  observe  the  sharp  antithesis  between  the  bitter 
and  the  sweet  of  the  Old  and  the  New  comedy,  respectively,  in  such 
statements  as  Diomedes  makes  (Kaibel  58/165):    '^secunda  aetate 
fuerunt  Aristophanes,  Eupolis  et  Cratinus,  qui  et  principum  vitia 
sectati    acerhissimas    comoedias    composuerunt.    tertia    aetas    fuit 
Menandri,  DiphiH  et  Philemonis,  qui  omnem  acerhitatem.  comoediae 
mitigaverunt ''     And    so    Evanthius    (Kaibel    64/70)    distin- 
guishes New  comedy  as  the  type  ''quae  ....  minus  amaritudinis 
spectatoribus    et    eadem     opera    multum    delectationis    afferret." 
Through  all  such  commentary  runs  the  AristoteUan  antithesis  of 
\v7relv  and  Tepireiv,  of  (rt/cpos)  and  t75i;s  as  coterminous  with  the 
Xoidopla  and  the  vTrbvota  of  Old  and  Hellenistic  comedy,  and  the 
characterization  of  Crates  is  an  inherent  part  of  this  theory. 


424 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  theory  as  theory  therefore  can  be  substantially  rehabiHtated ; 
the  value  which  we  attach  to  it  will  accord  with  our  estimate  of 
Aristotle's  worth  as  a  Hterary  critic.     It  will,  however,  still  be  impos- 
sible to  confirm  either  the  facts  or  the  theory  from  the  material 
evidence  suppUed  by  our  extant  remains  of  Sicihan  comedy  and  of 
Crates.     From  this  evidence  the  only  conservative  inference,  if  we 
attach  any  value  to  Aristotle's  statement,  may  be  best  expressed 
in   Wilamowitz'    discreet   comment -.i     ''Um   die   Entwicklung   des 
Aristophanes  und  der  Komodie  uberhaupt  zu  beurteilen,  mussten 
wir  eine  mythologische  Travestie  und  ein  Stuck  des  Pherekrates,  wie 
die  Korianno,  kennen:  so  ist  es  bitter,  aber  unvermeidlich,  dass  wir 
resignieren."     This  passive  state  of  resignation,  however,  may  well 
become  one  of  positive  opposition  if  modern  students  of  Roman 
comedy,    minimizing    this    tantalizing    evidence    of    a    generalized 
comedy  developing  under  Sicihan  influence  in  the  hands  of  Crates 
and  Pherecrates  in  the  fifth  century,  proceed  to  construct  a  theory 
in  which  Hellenistic  comedy  appears  largely  as  an  issue  from  Euri- 
pidean  tragedy.^     For  weak  as  the  links  may  be  that  connect  Epichar- 
mus,  Crates,  and  Pherecrates  with  Hellenistic  comedy,  they  are  at 

1  Sitzb.  d.  berlin.  Akad.  (1911),  485. 

2  Very  reluctantly,  in  the  pages  above,  I  have  briefly  resumed  the  evidence  of 
ancient  theory,  without  expecting  to  add  much  to  the  discussion.  The  proper  appre- 
ciation, however,  of  the  Euripidean  theory  seemed  to  me  impossible  without  once  more 
surveying,  I  hope  conservatively,  the  opposing  view  of  ancient  critics  and  distinguish- 
ing two  versions  of  ancient  dogma.  The  emphasis  upon  political  conditions  in  one 
version  may  be  old,  as  a  comparison  of  Platonius  (Kaibel  3/9  ff.)  with  Ps.  Xenoph. 
de  rep.  Ath.  II.  18  suggests;  and  the  aesthetic  version  does  not  necessarily  exclude 
the  main  elements  of  the  political  theory.  Yet  my  main  interest  is  not  in  any  precise 
determination  of  sources,  but  in  sketching  the  outlines  of  an  Aristotelian  theory  in 
which  Old  and  Middle  comedy  are  sharply  differentiated,  with  proper  provision  for 
foreshadowingsof  the  Middle  comedy  even  in  the  fifth  century,  and  these  foreshadow- 
ings  not  primarily  in  the  aggressive  triad,  Cratinus,  Eupolis,  and  Aristophanes.  Very 
likely,  if  we  had  all  the  material  of  comedy  before  us,  we  might  not  accept  this  Aris- 
totelian theory,  for  modern  procedure,  in  explaining  the  development  of  literary  types, 
is  more  exact  than  ancient  theory;  but  it  is  none  the  less  important  to  note  that,  with 
the  exception  of  a  single  document  to  be  discussed  later,  ancient  theory  that  is  sub- 
stantially due  to  Aristotle  has  found  no  place  for  Euripides  in  accounting  for  the 
development  of  comedy  down  to  at  least  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century. 

In  a  brief  survey,  written  simply  as  preliminary  to  a  discussion  of  the  Euripidean 
theory,  a  full  bibliography  of  the  treatment  by  modern  scholars  of  Sicilian-Attic  comedy 
is  out  of  place.  A  detailed  examination  of  the  question  may  be  expected  in  a  Princeton 
dissertation,  as  yet  unpublished,  entitled  The  Transition  from.  Old  to  Middle  Comedy. 
Older  handbooks  of  Greek  literature,  as.  for  example,  Bergk-Peppmueller,  followed 
Aristotle's  clue,  often  exaggerating  the  value  of  the  evidence.     Welcker  in  his  study 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


425 


least  sufficient  to  induce  a  sober  conservative  attitude  toward  any 
exclusive  emphasis  upon  Euripidean  tragedy,  or  upon  a  combination 
of  scurrilous  comedy  and  Euripidean  tragedy,  as  the  dominant  force 
in  the  generation  of  later  comedy.  The  vogue  of  the  modern  theory, 
however,  requires  a  serious  consideration  of  the  bases  upon  which  it 
rests. 


UniVersity  of  Chicago 


[To  he  concluded] 


of  Epicharmus  in  Kleine  Schriften  did  not  hesitate  to  emphasize  the  value  of  Sicilian- 
Attic  comedy.     Hasper  devoted  a  loosely  written  programme  {De  Cratete  et  Pherecrate 
nov.  com.  praecursoribus  [Leipzig,    18771)    to   the  subject.     Zielinski,  Die  Gliederung 
d.  altatt.  Komodie,  242,  endeavored  to  discriminate  a  Dorian,  mythological,  ethico- 
social,  from  an  Ionic,  political-personal,  or  elfish,  comedy.     Siiss,  in  his  dissertation 
De  personarum  ant.  com.  Att.  usu  atque  origine  (Bonn,  1905),  saw  the  significance  of 
Crates  and  Pherecrates,  but  in  Rh.  Mus.,  LXV  (1910),  441  ff.  emphasized  the  value  of 
Aristophanes  as  foreshadowing  Hellenistic  comedy.     The  most  recent  statements  of 
the  case  by  Korte  represent  the  germs  of  mythological  and  realistic  comedy  as  existing 
in  Sicilian  comedy;    he  appreciates  the  importance  of  Crates  and  Pherecrates;    nor 
does  he  fail  to  emphasize  the  influence  of  Euripides  though  regarding  it  as  setting  in 
late  and  gradually  increasing;    cf.  Hermes,  XXXIX   (1904),  486,  490;    Burs.-Jah- 
resb.,  CLII  (1911),  233,  244,  258;    and  his  popular  essay  Die  griech.  Komodie  (1914), 
pp.  24  ff . ,  68  ff .     The  effect  of  Leo's  studies  in  Roman  comedy  is  apparent  in  most  of  the 
recent  handbooks  of  Greek  literature,  as  in  Christ-Schmid  I«,  400.  in  which  the  influence 
of  the  Sicilian  comedy  of  types  on  Old  comedy,  particularly  on  Crates,  and  then  upon 
Middle  and  New  comedy,  it  is  remarked,  "kann  zuversichtlich  angenommen  werden," 
and  "the  same  influence  is  probably  effective  upon  the  Atellan  play";    the  force  of 
"zuversichtlich"  can  be  estimated  by  the  full  statement  of  Euripidean  influence  in 
the  same  handbook,  II /I',  26  ff. 


Reprinted  for  private  circulation  from 
Classical  Philology,  Vol.  XIII,  No.  2,  April  1918 


Classica 


iiiology 


Volume  XIII 


April  igi8 


Number  2 


THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  HELLENISTIC  COMEDY 

By  Henry  W.  Prescott 

III 

There  has  never  been,  to  my  knowledge,  a  professed  attempt  to 
establish  by  complete  logical  proof  the  modern  theory  of  Euripidean 
influence  upon  Hellenistic  comedy.  From  more  or  less  happy  figures 
of  speech  in  which  Menandrian  comedy  appears  as  "die  echte  Erbin" 
of  Euripidean  tragedy,^  or  New  comedy  as  the  adopted  child  of 
Euripidean  tragedy  though  the  natural  daughter  of  Old  comedy,  ^ 
modern  critics  have  passed  to  analytical  studies  of  various  aspects 
of  comedy  in  which  the  amount  and  kind  of  influence  have  been 
assumed  as  demonstrated  facts.  Without  doubt  the  present  vogue 
of  the  theory  and  of  consequent  practice  is  largely  due  to  Leo's 
masterly  studies  of  Roman  comedy,  both  his  critical  essays  on  con- 
taminated plays  and  on  special  features  like  the  monologue,  and 
particularly  the  notable  third  chapter  of  his  Plautinische  Forschungen; 
the  effects  of  his  teaching  emerge  in  many  dissertations,  not  only  of 
his  own  students,  but  of  others  influenced  by  the  general  trend  of 
investigation.  The  statements  of  Leo  which  I  have  to  review  in 
this  study  are,  many  of  them  at  least,  inserted  in  the  midst  of  an 
argument  in  this  chapter  of  his  Forschungen  which  I  cordially  approve ; 
the  sound  logical  procedure  of  establishing  the  Greek  background 
of  Roman  comedy  through  material  and  style  common  to  Plautus 
and  Euripides  is  constantly  vitiated  by  the  intrusion  of  statements, 

1  Wilamowitz,  Herakles^,  I,  55. 
«  Leo,  Hermes,  XLIII  (1908),  165. 
[Classical  Philology  XIII,  April,  1918]      113 


114 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


logically  unsound,  to  the  effect  that  Hellenistic  comedy  is  in  some 
way  substantially  dependent  upon  Euripidean  tragedy,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  these  common  elements  of  content  and  form. 

It  is  not  easy  to  discover  from  the  rapid  generalizations  of  modern 
critics  what  they  conceive  to  have  been  the  precise  interrelation  of 
Euripidean  tragedy  and  New  comedy,  to  discern  just  what  evolu- 
tionary process,  in  their  view,  relates  the  two  types  to  each  other. 
The  clearest  statement  of  the  case  I  find  in  the  words  of  the  protag- 
onist of  the  theory.     Leo  says^  that  Euripides  robbed  tragedy  of 
its  sublimity  and  humanized  it;    he  substituted  for  simple  action 
complex  action,  and  intrigue  with  surprising  developments,  added 
to  the  myth  bits  of  everyday  experience,  created  striking  and  com- 
plicated characters  to  replace  the  simple  heroic  figures  of  myth,  laid 
their  souls  bare  in  the  storm  and  stress  of  emotions,  questioned  the 
grounds  and  the  justification  of  domestic  and  social  relations,  and 
skeptically  regarded  the  divine  ordering  of  the  world.     Older  tragedy 
had  always  strongly  influenced  comedy;  when  comedy  was  deprived 
of  its  rights  of  free  speech  and  forced  to  relinquish  the  form  and  con- 
tent of  satirical  burlesque,  ''konnte  es  nicht  anders  sein  als  dass  sich 
bei  der  machtigen  Genossin  die  Weisung  eines  neuen  Weges  holte." 
So  comedy  brings  to  an  end  the  development,  started  by  Euripides, 
of  the  heroic  into  bourgeois  drama.     I  think  I  rightly  represent  Leo's 
idea  in  saying  that  this  development  which  he  sketches  is  intended 
to  indicate  that  comedy  does  not  directly  imitate  or  adapt  Euripidean 
tragedy  but  somewhat  unconsciously  continues  a  line  of  development 
initiated  by  Euripides.     Usually  in  Leo's  phraseology  comedy  works 
"nach  dem  Muster"  or  "in  Nachfolge"  of  tragedy,  though  occasion- 
ally the  critic  allows  himself  to  speak  of  direct  derivation ;  but  a  flat 
statement  of  derivation  is  immediately  qualified  so  as  to  suggest  a 
less  direct  and  more  subtle  relation  than  that  of  conscious  imitation 
or  adaptation.^ 

1  Gesch.  d.  rom.  Lit.,  I,  99-100. 

«  Der  Monolog,  38:   "Dass  die  neue  Komodie  nicht  von  der  alten,  sondern  von  der 

Tragodie  des  Euripides  herkommt,  ist  zu  einer  billigen  Wahrheit  geworden 

Sie  [comedy]  war  vorausbestimmt,  die  Nachfolgerin  der  dem  wirklichen  Leben  genaher- 
ten  Tragodie  zu  werden."  Leo  is  of  course  not  responsible  for  the  rash  statements  of 
some  of  his  admiring  followers:  "Sie  [New  comedy]  ist  ein  burgerliches  Schauspiel, 
das  direkt  aus  dem  euripideischen  Drama  wird,  mit  einigen  komischen  Figuren,  die 
aus  dem  fruhern  komischen  Drama  stammen."     (Dieterich,  Pulcinella,  52.) 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


115 


To  these  statements  of  Leo  I  have  not  the  slightest  objection; 
they  seem  to  me  in  the  main  true  and  illuminating,  and  they  mark 
a  great  advance  over  the  days  when  the  interpretation  of  Plant  us 
was  a  matter  of  Trivialerkldrung.  But  when  these  descriptive  state- 
ments issue  in  a  method  of  critical  procedure  that  assumes  a  norm 
of  Euripidean  art  as  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  what  is  Greek 
and  what  is  Roman  in  Plautus,  I  think  that  Leo  has  carried  us  farther 
than  is  warranted  by  the  attainable  evidence  of  the  nature  and  the 
extent  of  this  somewhat  elusive  process  of  continuation.  If  Old 
comedy  was  never  anything  but  Aristophanes,  and  if  the  content 
and  the  form  of  New  comedy  are  in  a  large  number  of  important 
specific  aspects  Euripidean,  undoubtedly  there  is  much  to  be  said 
for  the  issue  in  practice  of  these  illuminating  descriptive  phrases. 
In  my  previous  paper^  I  have  reiterated  that  Aristotle  found  some- 
thing besides  Aristophanic  comedy  in  the  fifth  century.  My  present 
purpose  is  to  indicate  the  value,  in  my  opinion,  of  those  larger  features 
of  form  and  content  which  modern  critics  find  to  be  Euripidean  when 
they  appear  in  Hellenistic  comedy.  Only  by  a  careful  estimate  of 
the  validity  of  the  common  elements,  as  they  may  bear  upon  the 
interdependence  of  the  two  types,  is  the  current  critical  procedure 
in  the  analysis  of  Roman  comedy  to  be  justified  or  corrected;  and 
I  may  add  only  also  by  an  equally  careful  consideration  of  the  ele- 
ments which  Euripidean  tragedy  and  comedy  do  not  share,  although 
this  aspect  of  the  case  cannot  be  a  prominent  part  of  my  review  of 

the  current  theory. 

IV 

Intending  only  to  restrict  and  define  the  extent  and  the  nature 
of  Euripidean  influence  I  am  not  embarrassed  by  the  one  bit  of 
external  evidence  which  modern  critics  can  quote  in  support  of  their 
general  contention.  In  the  last  quarter  of  the  third  century  Satyrus, 
a  Peripatetic,  wrote  a  biography  of  Euripides  in  the  form  of  an 
Aristotelian  dialogue;  he  says^  that  Euripides  and  New  comedy  have 

I  CP,  XII  (1917),  405  fif.  May  I  correct  a  sentence  on  p.  414,  1.  7;  it  should 
read:  "Whether  these  and  other  professional  types,  if  there  were  such,  were  taken 
over  from  Peloponnesian  Megara  to  the  Sicilian  habitat  of  Epicharmus,  etc." 

•On  Satyrus  as  a  biographer  cf.  Leo,  Griech.-rdm.  Biographie,  118ff.  For  the 
text  of  the  document  cf.  Oxyrhynch.  Pap.,  IX,  no.  1176,  fr.  39,  col.  vii  (also  von 
Arnim,  Supplementum  Euripideum,  5);  for  critical  discussion  Leo,  Nachr.  d.  gdtting. 
Gesell.  (1912),  281  f. 


116 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


in  common:  (1)  Certain  interrelations  of  domestic  characters,  hus- 
band and  wife,  father  and  son,  master  and  slave;  presumably  he  has 
in  mind  the  conflicts  between  the  two  members  of  each  of  these  pairs, 
but  the  papyrus  fragment  has  a  gap  at  this  point.  (2)  Three  motives 
used  in  the  peripety:  (a)  the  betrayal  of  maidens,  (b)  substitution 
of  infants,  (c)  recognition  by  means  of  rings  and  necklaces.  (3)  The 
arlxoL  avvTCi^ea^s  XeKTLKrjs;  here  the  papyrus  is  not  wholly  clear,  and 
the  Greek  furnished  by  the  first  editors  can  hardly  be  construed.^ 
These  elements  which  Satyrus  enumerates  will  concern  us  presently 
in  our  discussion  of  the  modern  theory.  At  the  moment  we  observe 
simply  that  Satyrus  is  an  Aristotelian;  his  style  and  terminology 
are  Aristotelian;  but  Aristotle  himself  found  in  Sicilian-Attic  comedy, 
not  in  Euripides,  so  far  as  extant  evidence  shows,  a  background  for 
Middle  comedy.  Satyrus  is  applying  in  broad  and  general  terms 
(far  different  in  quantity  and  kind  from  the  large  number  of  specific 
minutiae  set  forth  by  modern  critics)  to  New  comedy  as  a  whole  what 
Quint ilian  asserts  of  Mcnander  in  saying  that  he  admired  and  fol- 
lowed Euripides,  though  in  a  totally  different  type  of  literature. 
These  are  broad  generalizations,  the  soundness  of  which  has  been 
impaired  only  by  modern  analysis. ^ 


The  lack  of  organized  argument  naturally  leads  to  vagueness, 
ambiguity,  contradictions,  in  the  statements  of  modern  critics.  No- 
where, so  far  as  I  recall,  does  Leo  ever  generalize  in  a  way  to  give  the 

»  This  third  common  element  is  interpreted  by  Leo  to  be  "die  Farbe  der  gewohn- 
lichen  Redeweise";  Leo  supplements  the  text  of  the  papyrus,  von  Arnim  boldly  recon- 
stitutes it.  I  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  even  a  Hellenistic  biographer  would  imply 
that  New  comedy  owes  to  Euripidean  tragedy  the  simple  style  of  ordinary  usage  as 
distinguished  from  the  elevated  diction  and  manner  of  pre-Euripidean  tragedy.  Saty- 
rus quotes  a  new  fragment  of  Philemon  to  prove  his  statement:  EvpLirid-rjs  ttov  cprjaiv 
oCtws,  6s  fj.6vos  SvvaTUL  X^7€iy.  Might  not  X^7€ti'in  the  fragment  and  avvra^is  XcktckiJ 
in  Satyrus  refer  to  argumentative  speeches  ?  Is  it  not  the  organized  speech  on  general 
themes  that  Satyrus  finds  both  in  Euripides  and  in  New  comedy  ? 

«  It  is  important  to  observe  that  both  Quintilian  (x.  1.  69)  and  Satyrus  clearly 
indicate  that  their  inferences  are  drawn,  not  from  a  critical  comparison  of  the  two 
types  of  poetry  such  as  modern  criticism  has  developed  (cf.  e.g.,  Sehrt,  De  Menandro 
Euripidis  imitatore,  Giessen,  1912),  but  from  specific  testimony  by  the  comic  poets 
in  the  texts  of  their  plays.  So  Quintilian  represents  Menander  as  often  testifying, 
"ut  saepe  testatur,"  to  his  admiration  of  Euripides,  and  Satyrus  quotes  a  fragment  in 
which  Philemon  refers  to  Euripides  by  name;   cf.  also  Philemon,  frag.  130  Kock. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


117 


impression  that  love,  as  furnishing  situations  and  motives  in  comedy, 
is  anything  but  realistic.^  Yet  the  notion  prevails  that  in  some  way 
or  other  Euripides'  notable  interest  in  love  as  a  dramatic  motive  is 
responsible  for  the  sentimental  theme  in  comedy.  Koerte,  for 
example,  in  a  recent  popular  essay^  maintains  that  "  das  Liebesmotiv'' 
is  furnished  to  comedy  by  tragedy;  he  then  mentions  Phaedra, 
Stheneboea,  Medea,  and  concludes  by  saying  that  if  one  changes  the 
names  of  the  heroic  characters  in  the  Helena^  one  gets  "ein  biirger- 
liches  Schauspiel."  Specialists  writing  popular  essays  should  always 
be  charitably  treated,  but  Sehrt^  in  his  comparative  study  of  Menan- 
der and  Euripides  cannot  claim  exemption;  he  asserts  that  Menander 
learned  from  Euripides  that  jealousy  and  adultery  were  convenient 
means  of  promoting  dramatic  complications,  that  Menander  dis- 
covered these  devices  in  the  Eifersuchtsdramen  of  Euripides ;  all  this 
a  propos  of  the  facts  that  Polemon  in  Menander's  Perikeiromene  is  in 
love  with  Glycera  and  treats  her  brutally,  and  that  Polemon  is  a 
jealous  rival  of  Moschion,  Glycera's  brother;  the  love  of  brother  for 
sister  in  this  play  Sehrt  relates  to  the  same  theme  in  Euripides' 
Aeolus;  the  recognition  of  brother  and  sister  in  the  same  play  he 
relates  to  Euripides'  Electra  and  I  ph.  Taur.;  and  then,  as  a  convin- 
cing conclusion  he  asserts  that  Menander  ''mixed"  these  two  Eurip- 
idean themes,  the  love  of  brother  for  sister,  and  the  recognition 
theme,  and  lo!  the  Perikeiromene  was  made.  Menander's  depend- 
ence upon  Euripides  seems  to  me  very  substantial,  but  Sehrt's  method 
of  approach  results  in  a  neat  job  of  carpentry  rather  than  in  proper 
appreciation  of  a  poet's  art. 

Just  how  the  illicit  love  affairs  of  Phaedra  and  Stheneboea  led  to 
the  premarital  frailty  of  respectable  women,  or  the  amours  of  courte- 
zans, in  comedy  is  a  development,  or  an  upheaval,  that  I  find  myself 
unable  to  elaborate.  Polemon  is  brutal  and  jealous  as  is  Medea, 
but  I  see  only  in  real  life  the  background  for  Polemon's  cruel  shearing 
of  Glycera's  hair,  and  for  the  whole  situation  I  find  the  only  necessary 
source  in  such  everyday  events  as  Aristophanes  sets  forth  in  Plutus 
1013  ff.     If  Polemon  were  a  jealous  husband  planning  to  kill  his 


^  PI.  Forsch.^,  143:    "Die  Liebesgeschichten  sind  von  den  Komikern  dem  Leben 
entnommen  und  als  Stoff  und  Triebrader  der  Handlung  verwendet  worden." 

«  Die  griech.  KoniUdie  (1914),  69  f.  »  Op.  cit.,  25. 


118 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


children,  I  might  think  of  Euripides^  Medea;  otherwise  I  shall  be 
as  likely  to  see  the  influence  of  Euripides  here  as  I  do  in  the  jealous 
lover  of  Theocritus'  fourteenth  idyl.  Whatever  may  be  said  for  the 
Helena,  I  object  to  the  implication  that  the  reunited  husband  and 
wife  of  that  tragedy  have  any  relation  to  the  reunited  lovers  of  almost 
all  the  love  plots  of  comedy  until  somebody  proves  that  this  comic 
plot  is  in  the  large  nothing  but  a  tragic  scheme  of  action  made  over 
by  comic  poets. 

Some  of  the  absurditv  in  current  statements  would  be  removed  if 
the  critics  would  distinguish  between  love  as  a  theme,  love  as  a 
dramatic  motive,  and  the  psychology  and  pathology  of  love  as 
revealed  in  action  and  portrayal  of  character.  In  my  view  nearly  all 
Hellenistic  types  of  poetry  are  marked  by  the  emergence  of  love  as 
a  dominant  theme;  in  no  one  of  them  does  Euripidean  practice 
suffice  to  explain,  primarily  or  exclusively,  the  phenomenon.  As  a 
general  manifestation  I  explain  it  as  the  emergence  of  what  had 
hitherto  been  an  undercurrent ;  it  did  not  generally  emerge  in  poetry 
of  the  fifth  century,  for  regarded  as  a  morbid  condition  it  was  not 
an  elevated  theme;  Aristophanic  comedy  might  have  employed  it 
if  special  conditions  had  not  diverted  comedy  into  other  channels; 
it  may,  for  aught  I  know,  have  been  used  in  fifth-century  comedy  of 
the  Sicilian- Attic  type;  it  may  always  have  existed  as  a  theme  of 
popular  tale  and  of  any  realistic  or  unsophisticated  form  of  literature 
during  the  fifth  century,  as  it  certainly  did  before  the  fifth  century. 
In  the  Hellenistic  period  realistic  types  of  poetry  developed,  and 
epic  and  tragedy  removed  the  ban.  As  a  mere  theme  love  is  inevita- 
ble in  comedy  of  the  later  period.  In  this  development  Euripides 
is  simply  in  advance  of  his  time.  But  it  is  quite  possible  that,  being 
in  advance  of  his  time,  Euripides  did  supply  hints  in  the  use  of  love 
as  a  motive  in  drama,  and  in  the  elaboration  of  the  theme.  Unfor- 
tunately, I  look  in  vain  for  Phaedras  and  Stheneboeas.  Women  in 
comedy  are  seldom  allowed  to  elaborate  the  emotion  of  love;  the 
men  reveal  it  in  action  without  much  laying  bare  of  souls;  the  general 
conditions,  psj^chological  and  pathological,  and  the  consequences, 
social  and  personal,  are  sometimes  put  forth  in  set  speeches,  but  these 
general  conditions  are  broadly  Greek  and  Hellenistic  as  well  as 
Euripidean. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


119 


The  surest  way,  in  my  view,  to  secure  a  proper  perspective  regard- 
ing this  and  other  elements  of  the  content  of  comedy  is  to  study  them 
as  so  many  ingredients  of  the  comic  plot,  and  to  raise  at  the  outset 
of  the  discussion  the  large  question:  What  evidence  have  we  that 
the  tragic  plot,  or  representative  Euripidean  plots,  fully  or  in  large 
part,  affected  the  plots  of  comedy  ?  From  this  broad  standpoint  I 
should  like  to  consider  the  various  matters  which  the  critics  usually 
isolate  under  the  rubrics  of  love,  betrayal  of  maidens,  exposure  of 
infants,  substitution  of  infants,  kidnapping,  recognition  of  lost,  stolen, 
and  exposed  children,  intrigue,  and  other  material  elements.  These 
are  substantial  factors  in  the  structure  of  the  plot  in  comedy,  and 
they  should  not  be  regarded  apart  from  the  plot  in  the  large  function 
of  furnishing  the  framework  of  action. 

There  is  general  agreement  that  all  these  elements  of  the  plot 
accord  with  the  actuality  of  contemporary  life.  Literary  tradition 
is  at  best  only  a  contributing  factor,  though  perhaps  a  large  one  in 
some  cases.  That  this  literary  influence  issued  from  tragedy  rather 
than  from  any  other  literary  type  is  made  very  probable,  not  only 
by  the  opportunity  afforded  many  generations  of  comic  poets  of 
seeing  tragedies  on  the  stage,  but  by  the  continuous  tradition  of 
mythological  comedy  down  to  the  end  of  the  middle  period.  Start- 
ing with  Epicharmus,  some  of  whose  plays  may  have  been  based 
upon  oral  tradition  or  epic  sources  rather  than  upon  tragic  treatment 
of  myth,  and  continuing  at  Athens  through  the  fifth  century  though 
somewhat  submerged  by  political  satire,  mythological  comedy 
becomes  the  favorite  type  of  comedy  in  the  transition  period  just 
before  the  comedy  of  manners,  sentiment,  and  intrigue  is  thoroughly 
established  in  the  new  period.  These  travesties  of  mythological 
tragedy  certainly  brought  upon  the  comic  stage  with  considerable 
frequency  many  of  the  motives  and  situations  familiar  now  to  readers 
of  Roman  comedy,  such  as  love,  betrayal  of  maidens,  substitution 
of  infants,  exposure  and  recognition  of  children.  Aristophanes' 
Kokalos,  if  we  are  to  credit  the  loose  statement  of  his  biographer, 
contained  the  themes  of  betrayal  and  recognition  and  ''all  the  other 
themes  that  Menander  imitated."  Anaxandrides'  general  employ- 
ment of  love  and  betrayal  (which  may  perhaps  be  safely  inferred  from 
Suidas'  description  of  him  as  the  inventor  of  these  themes)  can  hardly 


120 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


be  separated  from  the  almost  exclusive  interest  in  mythological 
comedy  which  the  titles  of  his  plays  reveal. 

Such  conditions  supply  a  very  substantial  a  priori  basis  for 
the  modern  theory,  if  it  be  granted,  as  seems  not  unlikely,  that  in 
the  transition  period  Euripidean  plots  were  chosen  extensively  for  the 
purposes  of  travesty.  But  it  is  difficult  to  discover  from  the  generali- 
zations of  the  critics  just  what  happened,  in  their  view,  when  the 
plots  of  a  comedy  of  manners  came  to  be  cultivated,  and  replaced 
the  mythological  comedy  hitherto  so  highly  favored.  Were  the 
humanized  divinities  of  mythological  comedy  now  dubbed  Chremes 
and  Phcidon?  Were  the  amours  of  a  Zeus,  for  example,  thereby 
made  over  into  everyday  sentimental  situations  ?  Did  a  god's  sweet- 
hearts immediately  transmute  themselves  into  courtezans,  or  into 
compromised  young  women  of  a  higher  social  status  than  the  cour- 
tezans ?  I  should  myself  be  quite  willing  to  admit  that  the  human- 
izing of  heroic  figures  in  travesty  might  easily  have  opened  the  way 
toward  a  comedy  of  manners;  nor  should  I  be  deterred  by  Plautus' 
Amphitruo  from  granting  that  on  occasion  a  courtezan  might  have 
found  her  way  into  a  comedy  of  manners  through  being  part  of  a 
travesty  of  Zeus'  notorious  amours.  Yet  the  abundant  historical 
evidence  of  courtezans  in  contemporary  life  and  the  mystery  of 
Pherecrates'  Korianyio  prevent  my  according  any  great  value  to  the 
influence  of  tragedy  in  this  small  particular. 
/  The  only  way  that  I  see  of  avoiding  idle  speculation  is  to  compare 

the  plots  of  comedy  and  tragedy.  Completeness  is  impossible  in 
these  prolegomena;  nor  can  idle  speculation  be  altogether  avoided; 
but  a  few  illustrative  examples  may  at  least  disclose  the  general  line 
of  thought  that  my  own  mind  takes.  The  plot  of  Euripides'  Auge 
may  have  been  as  follows:^  At  a  nocturnal  festival  of  Athena,  Hera- 
cles in  a  drunken  revel  violated  Auge,  a  priestess,  leaving  with  her 
a  ring.  On  the  birth  of  a  child  her  father,  discovering  her  frailty, 
ordered  the  infant  exposed;  the  child  was  brought  up  by  a  doe;  Auge 
was  threatened  with  death  but  Heracles  arrived  opportunely  and, 
identifying  the  ring,  saved  both  child  and  mother.     In  response  to 

»  As  usual  one  is  handicapped  by  fragmentary  evidence;  it  is  not  certain  that 
this  story  is  the  Euripidean  plot,  or  that,  if  Euripidean,  it  is  complete.  Cf.  Nauck, 
Traa.  graec.frag*,  436  ff.;  Wilamowitz,  Anal.  Eurip.,  186  fif.  But  the  story  at  least 
illustrates,  better  than  any  other  single  plot,  the  contribution  that  was  made  on  occa- 
sion by  tragedy  to  comedy. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


121 


commands  from  the  oracle  of  Apollo,  Teuthras  married  Auge  and 
brought  up  the  infant  Telephus  as  his  own.  I  have  chosen  this  plot, 
not  only  because  it  has  many  of  the  recurrent  elements  of  the  comic 
plots,  but  because  of  its  dramatic  history.  A  detail  of  the  play 
excited,  probably,  the  slur  in  Aristophanes'  Frogs  1080.  Comic  poets 
of  the  transition  period,  Philyllius  and  Eubulus,  travestied  the  story 
and  perhaps  the  Euripidean  plot.  It  was  in  Menander's  mind  when 
he  wrote  the  Epitrepontes;  for  the  slave  (583-84  Koerte)  quotes  a 
passage  from  the  tragedy  in  justification  of  the  hero's  violence  and 
threatens  to  quote  the  entire  tragic  prjais  if  Smicrines  is  not  con- 
vinced. This  continuity  in  the  dramatic  tradition  may  deter  any- 
body from  dismissing  the  common  elements  of  tragic  and  comic  plot 
as  purely  accidental,  and  from  stressing  too  heavily  the  fact  that 
comedy,  apart  from  tragedy,  might  have  taken  the  scheme  of  action 
from  contemporary  life. 

But  what  are  these  common  elements,  and  what  is  the  significance 
of  them  ?  They  are  the  betrayal  at  a  nocturnal  festival,  the  excuse 
of  drunkenness,  the  ring,  the  birth  and  exposure,  and  the  solution 
through  recognition.  Now  if  we  compare  the  extant  comedies  with 
this  scheme  of  action  we  find  some  of  these  themes  and  situations 
in  the  Aulularia,  Cistellaria,  TruculentuSy  the  Greek  fragments  of 
Menander;  and  the  theme  of  recognition  is  more  generously 
illustrated.^  But  in  these  Roman  plays  what  do  these  elements 
common  to  tragedy  and  comedy  amount  to?  It  is  apparent  that 
(aside  from  the  mere  incidental  material  furnished  by  the  religious 
festival  at  night,  the  drunkenness,  the  ring)  the  really  basic  elements 
of  plot  material,  viz.,  the  stuprmn,  exposure,  and  the  recognition, 
simply  provide  in  some  comedies  the  initial  stages  of  complication 
and  the  final  solution.  Yet  in  the  comedies,  between  the  initial  stage 
and  the  solution,  stands  a  more  substantial  mass  of  plot  material 
which  nobody  can  relate  to  known  or  conceivable  tragic  plots.  The 
Aulularia,iov  example,  starts  with  the  same  presupposition  of  stuprum, 
committed  in  a  drunken  revel  at  the  night  festival  of  Ceres,  but  the 
resultant  complications  arising  from  the  conflict  between  Megaro- 
nides'  plans  and  Lyconides'  plight,  Euclio  and  all  that  issues  from 


1  On  stuprum,  the  religious  festival,  and  the  excuse  of  drunkenness  cf.  Leo,  PL 
ForschJ,  159;  on  recognition  ibid.,  158,  and  Hoffmann,  De  anagnorismo,  Breslau,  1910. 


122 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


his  character,  and  the  solution  of  all  the  complications  have  abso- 
lutely no  background  in  tragic  plots,  but  come  directly  from  con- 
temporary life  or  from  earlier  comic  tradition.     Modern  critics  may 
find  the  most  perfect  phraseological  identity  between  what  Lyconides 
says  to  justify  himself  {AuL  794)  and  Auge,  frag.  265  Nauck,  they 
may  compare  the  recognition  scene  in  the  Rudens  with  that  of  the 
Ion,  or,  better,  they  may  observe  the  exact  resemblance  in  form 
between  the  recognition  scene  of  the  Perikeiromene  and  corresponding 
scenes  in  tragedy,  or  between  the  arbitration  scene  in  the  Epitre- 
pontes  and  the  material  of  Euripides'  Alope  even  down  to  the  grand- 
father who  in  both  plays,  with  ironic  effects,  has  the  role  of  arbitrator 
thrust  upon  him,  but  the  unassailable  fact  remains  that  in  all  these 
plays  which  have  these  points  of  contact  with  tragedy  the  common 
basic  elements  of  plot  structure  appear  in  comedy  merely  as  the 
beginning  or  the  end,  or  the  beginning  and  the  end,  of  the  structural 
framework  of  comic  action.     And  when  one  adds  to  this  the  fact 
that,  outside  these  plays  which  have  these  elements  in  common  with 
tragedy,  there  exists  a  much  greater  number  of  comedies  with  no 
such  community  of  essential  elements,  one  begins,  I  think,  to  get  a 
desirable  perspective  in  estimating  the  precise  relation  of  comedy  to 
tragedy.     Where,  in  respect  to  essential  factors  in  plot  structure,  do 
the  Asinaria,  Mercator,  Mostellaria,  Pseudolus,  for  example,  reveal 
any  points  of  contact  with  the  plots  of  Euripidean  tragedy  ?     Love 
and   betrayal,   exposure   of  children,  and   recognition   are   floating 
elements,  the  availability  of  which  to  initiate  and  to  solve  complica- 
tions comic  poets  may  have  learned  to  a  considerable  extent  from 

tragedy. 

With  reservations  for  the  uncertainty  regarding  the  Euripidean 

plot  and  the  danger  of  idle  speculation  I  may  note,  briefly,  as  a  small 
contribution  to  our  appreciation  of  Menander  rather  than  to  our 
understanding  of  Hellenistic  comedy  in  the  large,  the  relation  of  the 
Auge  to  the  Epitrepontes.  Menander  had  the  Euripidean  plot  in 
mind ;  he  had  other  tragic  plots  in  mind  as,  perhaps,  the  relation  of 
the  arbitration  scene  to  the  Alope  makes  evident ;i  that  he  was  sensi- 
tive to  tragic  effects  and  deeply  appreciative  of  Euripides,  I  see  no 
reason  to  question.  But  from  a  psychological  and  dramatic  stand- 
iCf.  Fischl,  Hermes,  XLIII  (1908).  311. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


123 


point  the  essential  effects  secured  by  Menander's  plot  arise  from  the 
fact  that  the  betrayer  marries  unwittingly  his  victim,  discovers  her 
premarital  frailty,  and  punishes  her  in  ignorance  that  he  is  the  guilty 
person;  to  these  are  added  incidental  effects  obtained  through  the 
connection  of  the  courtezan,  Habrotonon,  with  the  action.  The 
story  of  Auge,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  furnishes  no  starting-point  for  any 
of  these  effects;  nor,  without  begging  the  whole  question  of  Euripi- 
dean influence,  do  I  find,  by  any  play  of  imagination  upon  the  known 
plots  of  tragedy,  a  more  immediate  source  for  this  inspiration  in 
tragedy  rather  than  in  the  concrete  experiences  of  contemporary  life. 
Menander  seems  to  have  constructed  an  effective  plot,  not  by  any 
humanizing  of  Auge  and  Heracles,  by  any  mere  transference  of  the 
tragic  story,  but  by  the  invention  of  an  entirely  different  situation 
and  of  incidental  embellishments  in  which  the  tragic  story  furnishes 
hardly  more  than  a  few  threads  in  a  richly  woven  web  of  his  own 
devising.  If  he  made  a  much  more  powerful  tragic  situation  out  of 
the  material  than  we  can  imagine  as  issuing  from  the  story  of  Auge, 
that  of  course  may  be  partially  due  to  his  absorbing  interest  in 
tragedy;^  but  such  an  interest  is  an  individual  characteristic,  which 
certainly  the  Greek  authors  of  the  Asinaria,  M creator,  Mostellaria, 
and  Pseudolus  do  not  reveal;  nor  does  Menander  always  discover  it 
in  any  such  degree. 

Modern  critics,  therefore,  have  in  my  opinion  exaggerated  the 
amount  of  Euripidean  influence  by  treating  under  separate  rubrics 
various  motives  and  situations  that,  regarded  as  essential  elements 
of  plot  structure,  represent  only  a  small  contribution  toward  devices 
for  initial  complications  and  ultimate  solutions  of  the  plot,  and  those 
devices  employed  in  a  relatively  small  number  of  the  extant  plays. 


I  Menander's  mind,  in  writing  the  Ejntrepontes,  must  have  been  full  of  tragedy; 
the  reference  in  the  arbitration  scene  (109  Koerte)  to  themes  of  exposure  and  recog- 
nition in  tragedy,  and  probably  Sophoclean  tragedy,  is  further  evidence.  Such  a 
reference,  however,  to  literature  rather  than  life  may  be  only  a  manner  of  speaking. 
One  remembers  Demosthenes'  attack  (in  Midiam,  sec.  149,  p.  563):  "who  of  you 
doesn't  know  the  unutterable  story — it  seems  like  tragedy — the  story  of  his  birth?" 
The  writer  of  the  article  "Expositio"  in  Daremberg-Saglio  quickly  infers  that  the 
substitution  of  children  in  New  comedy  is  a  literary  theme  and  not  primarily  realistic; 
it  is  at  least  interesting  that  Demosthenes  thinks  of  tragedy  rather  than  comedy. 
But  inferences  of  this  sort  are  dangerous;  so  I  observe  that  the  lena  in  Asin.  174  fif. 
defends  her  dishonest  treatment  of  the  young  lover  not  by  contemporary  practice, 
but  by  an  appeal  to  painting  and  to  poetry! 


124 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


125 


But  the  force  of  my  argument  is  impaired  if  these  critics  can  prove 
that  the  rest  of  the  framework  of  action,  between  initial  comphca- 
tions  and  solution,  is  substantially  a  continuation  of  the  tragicscheme 
of  action.     Now  to  a  limited  extent  modern  students  have  under- 
taken to  establish  this  larger  indebtedness  to  Euripidean  tragedy. 
Although  it  is  impossible  to  generalize  in  describing  the  comic  plot, 
it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  middle  part  of  the  comic  plot,  and  the  bulk 
of  the  action,  is  in  many  cases  a  plot  of  intrigue  devised  to  relieve 
the  pair  of  lovers  from  the  initial  complications  and  sometimes  involv- 
ing them  in  further  complications.     This  plot  of  intrigue  the  critics 
relate  to  such  Euripidean  intrigues  as  we  find  in  the  Ion,  I  ph.  Taur., 
and  Helena.     The  validity  of  their  contention  may  be  seen  from  the 
close  resemblance  between  parts  of  the  Helena  and  the  Miles  Gloriosus. 
Whoever  seeks  the  bridge,  says  Leo,^  which  leads  from  Euripides 
to  New  comedy  may  confidently  start  from  the  Helena.     He  admits 
that  it  is  naturally  only  a  happy  accident  that  the  reflection  of  a 
definite  tragedy  is  mirrored  in  a  single  comedy;   does  he  mean  by 
this  that  the  Greek  comic  poet  did  not  necessarily  imitate  con- 
sciously and  immediately  the  Helena  ?     If  so,  we  have  simply  to 
inquire  what  the  elusive  process  of  continuation  amounts  to  in  this 
case.     The  two  plays  have  as  their  common  theme  the  reunion  of  a 
pair  of  loyal  lovers,^  in  the  tragedy  a  married  couple,  in  the  comedy 
a  pair  of  lovers.     Obviously  this  is  the  most  commonplace  scheme 
of  anv  sentimental  plot  with  a  happy  ending;  Greek  comedies,  Greek 
romances  employ  it  frequently;  in  tragedy  it  is  a  rare  phenomenon, 
but  Euripides  is  given  to  happy  endings.     Leo,  wisely,  does  not 
emphasize  this  broad  community  of  theme.     But  he  does  stress  these 
specific  points.     In  both  plays  the  heroine,  accompanied  by  servants 
bearing  presents  or  offerings  furnished  by  the  duped  villain  of  the 
piece,  follows  on  shipboard  her  husband  or  lover,  who  is  disguised  as  a 
sailor,  as  a  part  of  a  plan  to  fool  the  villain;  in  this  situation  the  in- 
triguer (in  the  tragedy,  Helen;  in  the  comedy,  an  intriguing  slave)  in 
a  long  dialogue  with  the  villain  plays  with  danger  and  intensifies  in 
the  spectator  the  feeling  that  it  is  a  critical  emergency.     There  are 

I  PI  Forsch.\  165  ff.  In  Leo's  view  {Gesch.  d.  rom.  Lit,  I.  101),  the  interest  of 
the  comic  poets  in  intrigue  was  a  prime  factor  in  the  removal  of  the  chorus  from 
comedy;  this  withdrawal  of  the  chorus  Euripides  had  already  found  convenient 
in  the  Helena. 


parallels  in  phraseology  and  general  thought:  Helen  says  to  the 
villain  equivocally:  ''This  day  shall  prove  my  gratitude  to  you"; 
the  intriguing  slave  in  the  comedy  says  to  the  dupe:  ''Today  of  all 
days  you  shall  know,  shall  surely  say  that  I  have  proved  myself 
devoted  to  your  service."  In  both  plays  just  before  the  trick  is 
played,  its  success  is  seriously  endangered  by  the  proposal  on  the 
part  of  the  dupe  to  do  something  that  will  defeat  the  plan;  in  the 
tragedy  the  dupe  inquires  if  he  should  not  better  go  with  the  in- 
triguers, in  the  comedy  he  is  on  the  point  of  commanding  them  to 
remain;  and  in  both  cases  the  intriguer  meets  this  dangerous  sug- 
gestion successfully  and  averts  disaster.  Finally,  in  both  plays  the 
dupe  is  informed  of  the  success  of  the  trick  by  one  of  the  servants 
who  attended  the  intriguers  and  carried  the  presents  or  offerings 

furnished  by  the  dupe. 

Here  is  an  amount  and  kind  of  evidence  which  may  well  encourage 
the  source-hunter.     It  is  of  course  possible  to  state  the  case  much 
less  favorably  if  one  is  not  obsessed  by  the  theory  of  Euripidean 
influence.     One  may  perhaps  remark  that  the  use  of  intrigue,  and 
of  the  special  sort  of  trick,  with  the  lover  disguised  as  a  sailor  and 
the  escape  by  ship,  is  not  so  significant  as  Leo  thinks.     For  the  con- 
ditions and  scene-settings  of  both  plays  make  escape  by  sea  impera- 
tive, and  the  escape  by  sea  occasions  the  particular  type  of  trick  in 
which  the  husband  or  lover  is  disguised  as  sailor;  yet  these  conditions 
and  the  scene-setting  in  the  comedy  cannot  be  attributed  to  the 
influence  of  the  tragedy;  for  the  kidnapping  of  the  girl  in  the  comedy, 
the  consignment  of  the  slave  by  pirates  to  the  villain  in  Ephesus, 
are  no  part  of  the  tragic  plot  of  the  Helena  or  any  other  tragedy,  but 
are  taken  from  contemporary  experience.^    And  once  this  is  granted, 
many  of  the  less  fundamental  features  become  less  significant  than 
they  would  be  if  the  more  essential  basic  factors  of  the  comic  situa- 
tion were  inevitably  related  to  the  tragic  scheme  of  action.     One  may 
then  say,  for  instance,  that  if  at  the  critical  moment  in  both  plots 
the  intriguer  plays  with  danger,  and  if  in  both  dramas  the  dupe 
unconsciously  threatens  disaster  to  the  plans  of  the  loving  pair,  this 

1  For  the  reaHsm  of  the  details  cf.  Legrand,  Daos,  265  fif.  I  do  not  intend  to 
deny  that  kidnapping  and  piracy  may  also  have  had  at  this  time  a  background  m 
literature,  as  the  story  of  Eumaeus  and  his  nurse  in  Odyssey  xv.  403  ff.  may  well  suggest, 
but  certainly  tragedy  did  not  furnish  these  presuppositions  of  the  comic  plot. 


126 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


is  no  more  than  the  most  elementary  dramatic  device  to  create 
desirable  suspense,  and  the  commonplaceness  will  be  only  further 
illustrated  if  a  similar  thought  and  phrase  recurs  in  both  plays  in 
the  elaboration  of  the  dialogue.  Again,  if  a  slave  in  each  play  among 
those  who  attend  the  intriguers,  and  carry  presents  or  offerings 
furnished  by  the  dupe  himself,  brings  back  to  the  dupe  the  news  that 
he  has  been  fooled,  one  may  calmly  ask  who  else  would  naturally 
bring  back  the  announcement  that  is  necessary  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  action.  And  if  it  is  still  demanded  why  there  should  in  both 
plays  be  servants  carrying  such  presents  or  offerings,  one  might 
retort  that  it  is  simply  to  provide  a  person  to  bring  back  word  to  the 
dupe.  These  suggestions  of  mine,  however,  are  not  intended  to 
minimize  the  value  of  the  evidence  but  only  to  restore,  if  possible, 
a  little  of  the  balance  and  the  sanity  of  judgment  which  source- 
hunters  seem  rather  quickly  to  lose  in  the  pursuit  of  their  prey. 

For  argumentative  purposes,  at  least,  I  prefer  to  let  Leo's  state- 
ment of  the  case  for  the  Helena  stand  as  it  is.  To  this  case  the  Iph. 
Taur.  and  Ion  add  nothing;  for  the  former  simply  offers  an  intrigue 
which  provides  escape  by  sea,  as  in  the  Helena,  but  the  content  of 
this  intrigue  and  of  that  in  the  Ion  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  intrigues  of  comedy  so  far  as  the  material  elements  are  concerned.^ 


1  The  value  of  the  Helena  for  Leo's  purposes  is  enhanced  by  formal  features  such 
as  the  monologue,  which  I  shall  discuss  in  my  next  paper.  As  regards  the  intrigue 
another  angle  to  the  problem  is  presented  by  the  mime  Charition  (cf.  Winter,  De  mimis 
Oxyrhyn.,  24  ff.;  Knoke,  De  Charitio,  12fiF.).  If  one  is  limited  to  the  decipherable 
parts  of  the  papyrus  fragment  and  denies  himself  ingenious  supplementing  of  the 
text  and  rash  conjecture,  there  is  little  to  be  got  from  this  mime  for  our  present  pur- 
poses. A  woman  clearly  is  endeavoring  to  escape  with  a  brother's  help  from  the  coast 
of  India;  she  has  some  connection  with  a  temple,  possibly  of  Selene,  and  is  urged  to 
carry  off  with  her  votive  offerings  from  the  temple,  which  she  refuses  to  do;  the  escape 
is  made  by  ship;  the  opposing  parties  are  Indians,  a  king  and  attendants,  and  these 
Indians  speak  the  native  dialect;  apparently  these  enemies  are  befuddled  with  wine, 
and  the  escape  thereby  achieved.  If  the  woman  is  a  priestess  of  the  moon-goddess, 
if  she  is  in  danger  of  being  sacrificed  by  the  Indian  king  to  that  goddess,  and  is  saved 
by  her  brother  from  this  fate,  the  connection  with  the  Iph.  Taur.  is  very  close  though 
the  mime  is  clearly  not  intended  to  be  a  direct  parody  of  the  tragedy.  The  phraseo- 
logical parallels  between  the  mime  and  the  tragedy  brought  out  in  modern  discussion 
do  not  greatly  impress  me.  I  am  much  more  impressed  by  the  general  vulgarity 
and  obscenity,  by  the  use  of  the  native  Indian  dialect  with  its  obvious  relation  backward 
to  Aristophanes  and  the  Poenulus;  the  document  is  slippery  evidence  until  the  inter- 
relations of  comedy,  mime,  tragedy,  and  prose  romance  are  more  clearly  defined.  To 
me  the  crude  form  of  unsophisticated  romantic  tale  is  more  apparent  in  the  mime  than 
any  connection  with  sophisticated  literary  types. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


127 


What,  then,  is  the  relation  between  comedy  and  Euripidean  tragedy  ? 
Taking  Leo's  evidence  on  its  face  value  I  observe  that  by  a  happy 
accident,  as  Leo  puts  it,  one  Latin  comedy  is  closely  paralleled  by 
one  Euripidean  tragedy  in  respect  to  the  material  and  general 
elaboration  of  a  plot  of  intrigue.     I  then  observe  that  by  an  unhappy 
accident  no  other  Latin  comedy  with  a  plot  of  intrigue  has  any 
resemblance  to  any  Euripidean  intrigue.     In  brief  the  case  is  that 
three  out  of  somewhat  less  than  a  score  of  the  extant  plays  of  Euri- 
pides have  a  plot  of  intrigue,  that  a  considerable  majority  of  twenty- 
six  Latin  plays  have  a  plot  of  intrigue,  that  one  Euripidean  intrigue 
is  in  species  closely  akin  to  one  Roman  comedy,  but  that  the  only 
significant  fact  is  a  broad  generic  resemblance  combined  with  the 
greatest  possible  difference  in  species  as  regards  the  material  of 
intrigue  in  tragedy  and  comedy.     Generalization  regarding  the  comic 
plot  of  intrigue  is  unsafe,  but  any  reader  of  Latin  comedy  must 
admit  that  the  most  recurrent  scheme  of  action  in  comedy  presents 
lovers,  prevented  from  satisfying  their  desires  by  various  complica- 
tions, and  aided  in  the  slow  realization  of  their  hopes  by  the  swindling 
activity  of  an  intriguing  slave  or  parasite;  most  often  the  intriguer's 
aim  is  to  raise  money  by  his  trick ;  he  operates  in  various  ways,  with 
false  statements,  with  agents  in  disguise,  and  what  not;  but  neither 
in  the  general  scheme  of  intrigue  nor  the  details  of  its  elaboration 
have  the  modern  critics  brought  out  any  possible  connection  with 
any  of  the  few  intrigue  plots  of  Euripides,  save  in  the  single  parallel 
between  the  Helena  and  the  Miles.     The  background  in  literature 
of  this  comic  plot  of  intrigue  I  do  not  pretend  to  know;  it  seems  to 
me  ultimately  nothing  but  the  reaction  of  relatively  unsophisticated 
minds  on  the  facts  of  environing  life;  that  it  may  have  been  culti- 
vated in  Sicilian-Attic  comedy  is  possible  enough  but  cannot  be 
demonstrated.     Whatever  its  origin,  however,  there  is  no  comfort 
for  the  Euripidean  theory  in  the  most  substantial  part  of  the  frame- 
work of  the  comic  plot;  and  anybody  who  imagines  that  comic  poets 
had  to  wait  for  the  appearance  of  the  intrigue  plays  of  Euripides 
before  they  constructed  such  a  scheme  of  action  seems  to  me  to  be 
wanting  in  proper  appreciation  of  what  an  untrained  playwright 
most  immediately  resorts  to  when  occasion  demands  a  comic  play, 
be  it  farce,  comedy,  or  Schauspiel;  if  I  am  not  mistaken  his  readiest 


128 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


devices  are  swindling,  disguise,  and  confusion  of  persons.  These 
elements  may  at  any  moment  emerge  in  higher  types  of  literature 
but  they  are  fundamental  in  a  popular  realistic  type  like  comedy.^ 

Leaving  the  essential  elements  of  plot  modern  critics  find  even 
in  the  incidental  situations  of  the  comic  action  the  effect  of  Euripidean 
influence.  With  cases  of  direct  parody  of  specific  tragic  scenes  we 
are  not  concerned,  except  as  those  may  strengthen  the  general 
probability  of  intimate  knowledge  of  tragedy  on  the  part  of  the  comic 
poets;  here,  however,  the  examples  are  admittedly  few,^  and  the 
patent  fact  is  that  this  later  comedy  has  abandoned  a  notable  means 
of  comic  effect  in  Aristophanic  drama.  Nor,  it  seems  to  me,  does  the 
use  of  elevated  diction  and  general  tragic  style  for  comic  effect  relate 
to  our  present  inquiry;  such  burlesque  is  a  regular  function  of  the 
lower  grades  of  comedy.  Only  when  the  scene  is  serious  and  seem- 
ingly too  tragic  and  emotional  for  comedy,  do  the  critics  offer  us 
anything  that  requires  study.  Now  such  scenes  may  be  recurrent 
or  isolated.  Among  the  former  are  mad  scenes,  dreams,  resorts  of 
suppliants  to  altars.^  The  examples  of  the  first  two  are  too  few  to 
warrant  any  specific  conclusions.  With  regard  to  the  altar  scenes 
I  will  simply  remark  upon  a  characteristic  tendency  of  modern 
critics;  these  altar  scenes  must  be  an  old  feature  of  myth  and  tragedy; 
yet  the  critic,  admitting  that  here  Sophocles  as  well  as  Euripides  uses 
the  situation,  never  raises  the  question  whether  the  very  age  of  the 
theme  should  not  weaken  the  weight  of  Euripidean  influence.  Phor- 
mis,  for  example,  a  Sicilian  comic  poet  whom  Suidas  synchronizes 

1  So  the  imposter,  Zeus-Amphitruo,  of  myth  and  tragedy  is  not  the  starting-point 
of  the  various  imposters  of  comedy;  myths  that  furnish  the  material  of  tragedy  are 
popular  in  origin  and  will  often  reveal  points  of  contact  with  comedy  without  bemg 
the  source  of  the  comic  material.  Lest  I  should  seem  to  agree  with  Leo's  one  opponent 
in  the  matter  of  intrigue,  may  I  say  that  I  have  little  sympathy  with  the  statement 
of  Suess  (Rh.  Mus.,  LXV  [19101,  460):  ''Zu  Aristophanes,  nicht  zu  Euripides  fuhrt  die 
Entwickelungsgeschichte  des  klassichen  Charakter-  und  Intriguenspiels."  That  the 
activity  of  the  slaves  of   Demos  in  Aristophanes'  Knights  or  the  general  evidence 

of  trickiness  in  Doric  farce  (cf.  von  Salis,  De  Dor.  lud vestigiis,  17  flf.)  is 

a  substantial  background  for  the  developed  scheme  of  intrigue  in  later  comedy.  I 
venture  to  doubt,  though  this  material  illustrates  the  natural  tendency  of  comedy. 
And  to  prevent  Consideration  of  Atellan  plays  in  this  connection  I  may  add  that  tricae 
Atellanae  (Varro  Sat.  Men.  198  Buecheler-Heraeus)  has  no  warrant;  the  MSS  of 
Nonius  read  Tellanae,  which  is  confirmed  by  Arnobius  5.  28. 

«  Leo,  PL  Forsch.^,  132  ff.  In  these  matters  it  is  easy  to  be  subjective;  in  the  cor- 
respondence between  Cas.  621  ff.  and  Orestes  1369  ff.  I  can  see  nothing  but  broad 
burlesque  instead  of  direct  connection  with  a  specific  scene  of  tragedy. 

»  Cf.  Leo,  PL  Forsch.\  159  ff. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


129 


with  Epicharmus,  wrote  a  travesty  of  the  IXlov  ILopOrjaLs ;  is  it  likely 
that  he  failed  to  include  the  scene  in  which  Priam  resorts  to  the  altar 
to  escape  from  Neoptolemus  ?^  I  simply  throw  out  the  question  to 
illustrate  the  fact  that,  although  most  of  the  elements  of  comedy  for 
which  the  critics  find  a  tragic  background  are  the  most  ancient  fea- 
tures of  myth,  they  never  consider  the  possibility  that  such  relation 
as  comedy  bears  to  tragedy  in  these  matters  may  date  back  to 
Epicharmus  and  his  time.  When  it  comes  to  isolated  scenes  of 
tragic  content,  the  problem  is  different.  Logically,  the  case  stands 
thus  in  my  mind.  If  one  has  proved  that  Euripides  determined  in 
a  large  measure  the  content  and  the  form  of  the  comic  plot,  these 
scenes  may  be  cumulative  evidence.  But  until  that  is  proved,  when 
Leo  insists  that  a  guilty  slave  in  comedy  cannot  escape  merited  pun- 
ishment without  the  poet's  being  indebted  to  Euripides'  Hypsipyle, 
or  that  Menander  had  his  eye  on  Helena  1621  ff.  when  in  his  Samia 
he  represented  Demeas  as  keeping  Niceratus  from  bursting  into  the 
house  and  killing  his  wife,^  I  can  see  nothing  but  a  begging  of  the 
whole  question  at  issue.^ 

The  real  nub  of  the  question  lies  in  Leo's  contention  regarding 
the  material  of  comedy:^  ''Es  sind  nach  dem  Muster  der  Tragodie 
durchgefiihrte  Handlungen,  darauf  angelegt  Menschen  der  gewohnten 
Art  in  mannigfache  Lebensbeziehung  zueinander  treten  zu  lassen.  Die 
Zustandc  und  Erlebnisse  sind  oft  im  Laufe  des  Stuckes  bedrohlich  ge- 
nug,  jede  Charaktereinschaft  und  starkes  Pathos  kann  sich  entfalten; 
das  lustige  Element  ist  oft  nur  durch  einzelne  Personen  vertreten." 
In  other  words  it  is  the  essentially  serious  nature  of  the  general 
situation  in  comedy  and  the  free  play  given  to  emotion  that  lead 
critics  to  look  to  tragedy  of  the  Euripidean  type  for  an  explanation. 
But  I  should  like  to  point  out  that  this  explanation  cannot  reasonably 

I  A  phluax  vase  illustrates  the  use  in  comedy  of  this  situation  but  it  is  idle  con- 
jecture (Arch.  Zeit.  [1849],  43)  to  refer  the  scene  on  the  vase  to  Phormis'  play. 

«  Gesch.  d.  r6m.  Lit.,  I,  104. 

«  In  this  connection  would  come  Satyrus'  contention  that  certain  interrelations 
(left  uncertain  by  the  gap  in  the  papyrus)  between  husband  and  wife,  father  and  son, 
master  and  slave,  are  shared  in  common  by  Euripides  and  New  comedy.  My  stand- 
point would  be  that  such  interrelations  in  comedy  develop  as  part  of  a  realistic  plot; 
Euripides  undoubtedly  in  humanizing  tragedy  developed  similar  situations;  if  in  a 
given  scene  in  comedy,  one  finds  resemblance  between  comedy  and  Euripides  in 
specific  details  that  are  not  commonplace,  Satyrus'  implication  is  sound;  otherwise 
the  resemblance  is  fortuitous. 

<  Gesch.  d.  rdm.  Lit.,  I,  104. 


130 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


be  found  in  tragedy  if  the  comic  plot  is  not  substantially  derived 
from  tragedy,  and  if  that  comic  plot  taken  directly  from  life  is  in 
itself  of  a  serious  character.     To  illustrate  from  the  Captivi,  which 
seems  to  many  critics  simply  a  tragedy  with  the  addition,  for  comic 
relief,  of  the  parasite  Ergasilus.     The  scene  is  set  in  wartime;  this 
war  is  obviously  a  reflection  of  conditions  in  the  Hellenistic  period; 
the  father  has  lost  two  sons,  one  stolen  by  a  slave,  the  other  taken 
captive  in  war;    he  attempts  to  redeem  the  latter  by  buying  up 
captives  whom  he  may  offer  in  exchange  for  his  captured  son ;  in  so 
doing  he  accidentally  buys  his  other  son,  whom  unwittingly  he  treats 
brutally;   out  of  these  fundamental  elements  various  serious  situa- 
tions develop,  and  consequent  emotional  scenes.     Yet    -ot  a  smgle 
one  of  these  fundamental  elements  of  the  plot  has  any  connection 
whatever  with  the  plots  of  Euripidean  tragedy;  they  come  directly 
from  real  contemporary  experience  as  the  background  of  war  clearly 
suggests.     But  how  can  any  poet  make  a  play  out  of  this  material 
without  its  being  full  of  threatening  situations  and  naturally  issuing 
in  pathetic  scenes  ?    The  most  that  can  be  said  for  the  influence  of 
tragedy,  under  these  conditions,  is  that  once  the  plot  of  comedy, 
derived  from  real  life,  provided  this  generally  pathetic  and  tragic 
situation,  the  comic  poet  conceivably  took  hints  from  any  tragic  poet 
in  details  of  technique,  in  elaborating  pathetic  elements.    But  the  sub- 
stantial material,  the  scenes  and  situations,  the  pathos,  in  the  large, 
are  an  inevitable  issue  from  the  chosen  scheme  of  action,  and  that 
scheme  is  independent  of  Euripides.    And,  of  course,  it  follows  in  such 
a  case  that  comic  elements  have  to  be  inorganic.     The  Captivi  is  an 
extreme  case,  but  the  logic  of  the  general  conclusion  is,  I  think, 
unassailable;    until  the  comic  plot  is  proved  to  be  substantially  a 
transference  of  the  tragic  plot,  the  tragic  scenes  and  situations  of 
comedy,  in  the  large,  cannot  be  traced  to  the  influence  of  tragedy; 
for  they  issue  naturally  and  inevitably  from  a  framework  of  action 
that  itself  provides  very  often  nothing  but  serious  and  emotional 
situations.  1    Nor  should  critics  be  prepossessed  against  this  explana- 

1  This  statement  does  not  conflict  at  all  with  an  admission  that  recognition  scenes 
and  a  few  other  constituent  elements  in  comedy  directly  reflect  tragedy.  Any  stock 
theme  of  tragedy  might  have  come  over  into  comedy,  directly  or  through  mythological 
comedy,  but  no  serious  or  tragic  situation  in  comedy  as  such  is  inevitably  related  to 
Euripidean  or  other  tragedy. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


131 


tion  of  serious  and  pathetic  comedy  by  the  fact  that,  possibly,  in 
modern  literature  such  comedy  has  sometimes  developed  under  the 
influence  of  tragedy. 

The  weakness  of  the  modern  theory,  so  far  as  it  deals  with  the 
content  of  comedy  and  tragedy,  seems  to  me  to  be  admitted  by  the 
critics  themselves  when  they  frankly  avow  that  the  characters  of 
comedy  come,  not  from  tragedy,  but  from  real  life.     Leo,^  to  be  sure, 
asserts  that   "in  der  Wahl   und   Formung   des  dem   allgemeinen 
menschlichen  Erlebnis  zu  entnehmenden  Stoffes  war  die  Tragodie 
.     .     .     .     vorangegangen  "  and  illustrates  what  he  means  by  saying 
that  by  mere  change  of  costume  plays  like  the  Ion,  Helena,  Iph.  Taur., 
may  be  in  the  main  easily  made  over  into  comedies;   he  represents 
comic  poets  as  remodelling  the  form  and  action  of  Old  comedy  on 
the  model  of  Euripidean  tragedy.     But  in  speaking  of  the  characters 
of  comedy,  he  admits,  as  everybody  must,  that  the  professional 
types  of  comedy  are  unknown  to  tragedy,  and  of  the  domestic  roles 
he  expressly  says:^  ''  Es  ist  nur  das  Leben  mit  den  typischen  Figuren 
der  Familie  und  des  Lebensalters."    The  fineness  of  characterization 
he  regards  as  wanting  in  tragedy,  and  the  stereotyping  he  ascribes 
to  constant  handling  by  generations  of  comic  poets.     If  comedy  is 
at  all  substantially  indebted  to  tragedy  for  its  content,  it  is  singular 
that  no  characters  have  come  over  into  comedy  from  tragedy;  modern 
critics  would  perhaps  reply  that  Euripides,  by  humanizing  heroes  and 
gods  and  the  situations  of  myth,  accidentally  provided  situations 
and  motives  which  were  useful  to  comic  poets  without  providing 
characters;  the  characters  of  comedy,  furnished  by  a  realistic  scheme 
of  action,  already  accorded,  so  far  as  domestic  roles  are  concerned, 
with  the  humanized  figures  of  Euripidean  tragedy.     But  granting 
this  to  be  the  case,  may  I  point  out  how  difficult  it  is  to  prove  that 
the  motives  and  situations  of  comedy,  since  they  develop  naturally 
in  connection  with  the  realistic  characters,  have  any  substantial 
relation  to  corresponding  situations  and  motives  in  tragedy?     A 
recognition  of  this  difficulty  might  reveal  to  the  critics  that  they  are 
in  serious  danger,  throughout  their  arguments,  of  simply  begging 
the  entire  question  of  Euripidean  influence. 

1  Gesch.  d.  rom.  Lit.,  I,  101. 
*Ibid.,  105  fif. 


132 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


133 


The  admission  of  modern  critics  regarding  the  characters  of 
comedy  affects  only  the  roles  qua  roles.     It  is  still  possible  for  them 
to  maintain,  and  this  they  often  do  maintain,  that  the  content  or 
the  technique  of  character  treatment  is  Euripidean.     Comments 
along  these  lines  are  scattered  and  various,  and  I  can  only  make 
some  strictures  on  representative  cases  to  illustrate  the  difference 
in  my  own  standpoint.     Leo,i  for  example,  asserts  that  the  philoso- 
phizing slave  in  comedy  is  taken  directly  from  tragedy.     Now 
Onesimus,  a  slave,  in  the  final  scenes  of  the  Epitrepontes  philosophizes; 
his  philosophy  is  contemporary  Epicureanism;    is  he,  as  a  philoso- 
phizing slave,  Euripidean  ?     As  I  read  Euripides,  freemen  and  slaves 
moralize  and  philosophize,  often  at  undue  length  and  in  digressory 
form;  in  real  life,  to  my  thinking,  the  servile  class  is  much  given  to 
moralizing.     As  an  Epicurean,   the  slave  Onesimus  seems  to  me 
unnatural,  and  I  find  the  explanation  in  contemporary  philosophy 
for  this  unnatural  feature  of  the  content  of  his  remarks.     As  a 
moralizer^  he  seems  to  me  realistic.     As  a  digressory  declaimer  he 
seems  to  me  Euripidean.     In  brief,  a  flat  statement  that  the  philoso- 
phizing slave  in  comedy  is  Euripidean  exaggerates  the  degree  of 
indebtedness,  and  overlooks  the  truth,  which  these  criticisms  of  mine 
are  intended  in  general  to  illustrate,  that  Hellenistic  comedy  is  a 
complex  phenomenon  instead   of  being  Euripidean   tragedy  with 
comic  appurtenances.     Legrand,  in  discreet  questions,  implies  that 
the  good  courtezans  of  comedy  are  so  many  Andromaches  and 
Laodameias,  that  Medea  taught  Menander's  Leucadian  woman  the 
madness  of  jealousy,  that  courtezans  who  consult  sorceresses  are 
modeled  after  Medea  and  Deianeira,  who  employed    philtres    to 
revenge  themselves,  that  Selenium  in  the  Cistellaria  is  languid  and 

1  PL  Forsch.*,  132. 

«  The  moralizing  slave  of  Euripides  is  illustrated  by  Helena  725-26: 

KUKbi  yap  6<TTLS  M  ai^ei  rd  deawSTuv 

Kal  (nr/yiyrj^e  Kal  avvudiveL  KaKois. 
This  compact  generalization  reminds  one  of  the  elaborate  preachments  of  Aul.  587  fT., 
Men  966  ff  Most.  858  ff.  But  can  anybody  regard  the  comic  passages  as  mere 
expansions  of  the  tragedian's  brief  generalization?  This  moralizing  loyal  slave  is 
realistic,  though  stereotyped  by  literary  tradition.  Euripides  and  comedy  are.  inde- 
pendentlv  of  each  other,  bourgeois  and  realistic.  Euripides  stops  at  the  brief  generali- 
zation- tragedy  in  general  would  not  admit  the  undignified  enlargement  of  the  theme. 
Comedy  freely  enlarges,  not  the  tragic  theme,  but  the  commonplace  character  and 
situation. 


neglects  her  personal  appearance  because  Phaedra  is  similarly  lan- 
guid and  neglectful.^     The  last  three  items,  in  which  the  common- 
places of  Greek  life  and  human  experience  are  used  to  bolster  up  the 
Euripidean  theory,  I  do  not  care  to  dignify  by  any  discussion.     The 
contention  regarding  the  good  courtezan  I  am  willing  to  consider 
when  any  evidence  is  forthcoming,  but  being  convinced  that  the 
bad  courtezan  is  proved  to  be  realistic  by  abundant  contemporary 
evidence  and  perhaps,  as  a  comic  character,  established  in  comedy 
as  early  as  Pherecrates,  I  must  in  the  meantime  assume  that  the 
good  courtezan  is  equally  realistic,  if  slightly  idealized  and  somewhat 
extravagantly  employed  for  dramatic  convenience.     Somew^hat  dif- 
ferent from  the  content  and  technique  of  character  treatment  is  the 
economic  function  of  characters  in  the  elaboration  of  the  action. 
Little  has  yet  been  done  toward  a  study  of  this  aspect  of  comedy, 
but  there  is  danger  that  future  students  will,  as  usual,  start  with  the 
presupposition  of  Euripidean  influence  instead  of  impartially  study- 
ing both  types  of  drama.     So,  for  example,  Ahlers,^  in  concluding 
a  study  of  the  role  of  confidant  in  tragedy,  asserts  that  tragedy  is  the 
school  of  comedy  in  respect  to  this  role,  wisely  adding  that  compari- 
sons may  not  be  drawn  between  the  two  types  ''ohne  Weiteres.'' 
I  should  suggest  that,  in  comparing  tragedy  and  comedy,  one  should 
remember  that  the  confidential  role  is  a  technical  device  shared  by 
popular  tale,  myth,  tragedy,  comedy,  and  Hellenistic  novel,  and 
that  one  must  reckon  with  the  possibility  that  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  or  even  earlier,  it  was  stock  material  of  literary  art.     A 
different  precaution  would  lead  to  surer  results  than  have  been 
attained  by  students  of  the  messenger  in  comedy,^  and  this  precau- 
tion, I  think,  has  a  broad  application.     In  studying  tragedy  and 
comedy  in  respect  to  features  of  technique  critics  seem  to  overlook 
the  fact  that  certain  conditions  of  the  stage  and  theater  are  bound 
to  bring  about  similar  technique  in  tragedy  and  comedy.     So,  for 
example,  the  messenger  per  se  is  required  by  the  limitations  of  a  fixed 

>  Legrand.  Daos,  317  fif. 

»  Die  Vertrautenrolle  in  d.  gr.  Trag.  (Giessen.  1911),  68. 

•  Beyer,  De  scaenis  com.  Alt.  vet.  quibus  quae  ad  actionem  spectant  narrantur,  non 
aguntur  (Gdttingen,  1912);  Weissmann,  De  servi  currentis  persona  ap.  com.  Rom. 
(Giessen,  1911);   Wagner.  De  nuntiis  comicis  (Breslau.  1913). 


"ifl!- 


132 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


The  admission  of  modern  critics  regarding  the  characters  of 
comedy  affects  only  the  roles  qua  roles.  It  is  still  possible  for  them 
to  maintain,  and  this  they  often  do  maintain,  that  the  content  or 
the  technique  of  character  treatment  is  Euripidean.  Comments 
along  these  lines  are  scattered  and  various,  and  I  can  only  make 
some  strictures  on  representative  cases  to  illustrate  the  difference 
in  my  own  standpoint.  Leo,^  for  example,  asserts  that  the  philoso- 
phizing slave  in  comedy  is  taken  directly  from  tragedy.  Now 
Onesimus,  a  slave,  in  the  final  scenes  of  the  Epitrepontes  philosophizes; 
his  philosophy  is  contemporary  Epicureanism;  is  he,  as  a  philoso- 
phizing slave,  Euripidean  ?  As  I  read  Euripides,  freemen  and  slaves 
moralize  and  philosophize,  often  at  undue  length  and  in  digressory 
form;  in  real  life,  to  my  thinking,  the  servile  class  is  much  given  to 
moralizing.  As  an  Epicurean,  the  slave  Onesimus  seems  to  me 
unnatural,  and  I  find  the  explanation  in  contemporary  philosophy 
for  this  unnatural  feature  of  the  content  of  his  remarks.  As  a 
moralizer^  he  seems  to  me  realistic.  As  a  digressory  declaimer  he 
seems  to  me  Euripidean.  In  brief,  a  flat  statement  that  the  philoso- 
phizing slave  in  comedy  is  Euripidean  exaggerates  the  degree  of 
indebtedness,  and  overlooks  the  truth,  which  these  criticisms  of  mine 
are  intended  in  general  to  illustrate,  that  Hellenistic  comedy  is  a 
complex  phenomenon  instead  of  being  Euripidean  tragedy  with 
comic  appurtenances.  Legrand,  in  discreet  questions,  implies  that 
the  good  courtezans  of  comedy  are  so  many  Andromaches  and 
Laodameias,  that  Medea  taught  Menandcr's  Leucadian  woman  the 
madness  of  jealousy,  that  courtezans  who  consult  sorceresses  are 
modeled  after  Medea  and  Deianeira,  w^io  employed  philtres  to 
revenge  themselves,  that  Selenium  in  the  Cistellaria  is  languid  and 

»  PL  ForschJ,  132. 

«  The  moralizing  slave  of  Euripides  is  illustrated  by  Helena  725-26: 

KaKbs  yap  6<ttls  /xt)  a^^ei  to.  deawdruy 

Kal  iTvyy^yrjde  Kai  avvuidiveL  KaKoTs. 

This  compact  generalization  reminds  one  of  the  elaborate  preachments  of  Aul.  587  ff.. 
Men.  966  fif.,  Most.  858  ff.  But  can  anybody  regard  the  comic  passages  as  mere 
expansions  of  the  tragedian's  brief  generalization?  This  moralizing  loyal  slave  is 
realistic,  though  stereotyped  by  literary  tradition.  Euripides  and  comedy  are,  inde- 
pendently of  each  other,  bourgeois  and  realistic.  Euripides  stops  at  the  brief  generali- 
zation; tragedy  in  general  would  not  admit  the  undignified  enlargement  of  the  theme. 
Comedy  freely  enlarges,  not  the  tragic  theme,  but  the  commonplace  character  and 
situation. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


133 


neglects  her  personal  appearance  because  Phaedra  is  similarly  lan- 
guid and  neglectful.^  The  last  three  items,  in  which  the  common- 
places of  Greek  life  and  human  experience  are  used  to  bolster  up  the 
Euripidean  theory,  I  do  not  care  to  dignify  by  any  discussion.  The 
contention  regarding  the  good  courtezan  I  am  willing  to  consider 
when  any  evidence  is  forthcoming,  but  being  convinced  that  the 
bad  courtezan  is  proved  to  be  realistic  by  abundant  contemporary 
evidence  and  perhaps,  as  a  comic  character,  established  in  comedy 
as  early  as  Pherecrates,  I  must  in  the  meantime  assume  that  the 
good  courtezan  is  equally  realistic,  if  slightly  idealized  and  somewhat 
extravagantly  employed  for  dramatic  convenience.  Somew^hat  dif- 
ferent from  the  content  and  technique  of  character  treatment  is  the 
economic  function  of  characters  in  the  elaboration  of  the  action. 
Little  has  yet  been  done  toward  a  study  of  this  aspect  of  comedy, 
but  there  is  danger  that  future  students  will,  as  usual,  start  with  the 
presupposition  of  Euripidean  influence  instead  of  impartially  study- 
ing both  types  of  drama.  So,  for  example,  Ahlers,^  in  concluding 
a  study  of  the  role  of  confidant  in  tragedy,  asserts  that  tragedy  is  the 
school  of  comedy  in  respect  to  this  role,  wisely  adding  that  compari- 
sons may  not  be  drawn  between  the  two  types  ''ohne  Weiteres." 
I  should  suggest  that,  in  comparing  tragedy  and  comedy,  one  should 
remember  that  the  confidential  role  is  a  technical  device  shared  by 
popular  tale,  myth,  tragedy,  comedy,  and  Hellenistic  novel,  and 
that  one  must  reckon  with  the  possibility  that  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  or  even  earlier,  it  was  stock  material  of  literary  art.  A 
different  precaution  would  lead  to  surer  results  than  have  been 
attained  by  students  of  the  messenger  in  comedy,^  and  this  precau- 
tion, I  think,  has  a  broad  application.  In  studying  tragedy  and 
comedy  in  respect  to  features  of  technique  critics  seem  to  overlook 
the  fact  that  certain  conditions  of  the  stage  and  theater  are  bound 
to  bring  about  similar  technique  in  tragedy  and  comedy.  So,  for 
example,  the  messenger  per  se  is  required  by  the  limitations  of  a  fixed 


»  Legrand,  Daos,  317  ff. 

*  Die  Vertrautenrolle  in  d.  gr.  Trag.  (Giessen,  1911),  68. 

•  Beyer,  De  s-'aenis  com.  Alt.  vet.  quibus  quae  ad  actionem  spectant  narrantur,  non 
aguntur  (Gottingen,  1912);  Weissmann,  De  servi  currentis  persona  ap.  com.  Rom. 
(Giessen,  1911);   Wagner,  De  nuniiis  comicis  (Breslau,  1913). 


134 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


stage-setting,  quite  apart  from  any  other  considerations.  Parodies 
of  the  tragic  messenger  may  be  found  in  Aristophanes  and  in  Plautus, 
but  the  comic  messenger  is  inevitable  even  if  there  had  never  been 
any  tragedy.  Once  this  is  granted,  no  amount  of  resemblance  in 
small  particulars  can  outweigh  the  outstanding  facts  that  messengers 
in  Aristophanes  and  Hellenistic  comedy  are  organic  roles,  not 
relatively  inorganic  roles  as  in  tragedy,  and  that  tragic  messengers 
are  characterized  by  long-winded  speeches  while  in  comedy,  except 
for  a  few  cases  of  parody,  the  messengers'  speeches  are  delivered 
with  the  directness  and  brevity  of  realism.  The  differences  rather 
than  the  resemblance  are  the  significant  features. 

A  uuich  broader  indebtedness  to  Euripides  is  sketched  in  Leo's 
carefully  framed  sentence  i^  ''Es  ist  bekannt  und  im  Zusammenhang 
der  attischen  Kunst  mit  dem  Lcben  tief  begriindet,  dass  die  Komodie 
des  Menander  und  Philemon  ....  in  der  Welt-  und  Lebensan- 
schauung,  deren  Spiegel  sie  ist,  mehr  in  der  euripideischen  Tragodie 
als  in  der  alten  Komodie  wurzelt."  Later,^  he  discerns  three  streams 
of  influence,  contemporary  hfe,  Euripidean  tragedy,  and  contem- 
porary ethics,  the  last  a  continuation  of  the  same  stream  of  influence 
that  fertilized  Euripidean  thought.  If  such  a  recognition  of  the 
complex  situation  in  Hellenistic  comedy  marked  Leo's  other  utter- 
ances, and  if  critical  procedure  in  treating  Roman  comedy  corre- 
sponded to  such  statements,  I  should  be  relieved  of  my  present  task. 
Furthermore,  in  the  details  of  his  subsequent  argument,^  Leo  often 
stresses  form  rather  than  substance.  Yet,  admirable  as  these  state- 
ments are,  I  miss  at  the  outset  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
critical  attitude  toward  life  and  the  ordering  of  the  world,  and  its 
expression  in  the  proposals  of  drastic  reform,  are  inherent  in  Aristo- 
phanic  comedy  and  in  Utopian  comedy  of  the  fifth  century.  Is  not 
the  spirit  of  such  pronouncements  that  of  the  Aristophanic  parabasis  ? 
Does  not  the  betterment  of  Athenian  society  and  politics  serve  as  a 
substantial  background  for  the  Weltverhesserung  of  Hellenistic  com- 
edy? Euripides,  like  New  comedy,  puts  these  programs  in  the 
mouths  of  individual  actors  in  the  form  of  somewhat  digressory 
declamations,  not  in  the  mouths  of  a  chorus.  This  point  of  resem- 
blance is  important,  though  I  must  confess  that  I  should  be  interested 

»  PL  Porsche,  113.  « Ibid.,  126.  » Ibid.,  113-31. 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


135 


in  knowing  how  a  relatively  chorusless  Sicilian-Attic  comedy  in  the 
fifth  century  expressed  this  same  critical  attitude. 

In  details  Leo's  material  and  inferences  may  occasionally  be 
enriched  and  clarified;  deeper  probing  may  lead  to  different  con- 
clusions. So,  for  example,  he  observes^  acutely  the  resemblance,  in 
frequent  attacks  upon  social  and  professional  groups,  between 
Euripides  and  New  comedy.  Scurrilous  broadsides  aimed  at  pro- 
curers, bankers,  scurrae,  fishdealers,  as  classes  of  society,  are  paral- 
leled by  Euripides'  well-known  thrusts  at  athletes  and  heralds  and 
rhetores.  But  Leo  omits  mentioning  that  Euripides  is  only  extend- 
ing the  range  of  attacks  on  the  manteis,  familiar  to  readers  of  the 
Oed.  Rex  and  Antigone  1035.^  He  does  not  tell  us  that  Aristophanes 
attacks  the  rhetores  (cf.  Plato,  frag.  186),  and  I  cannot  see  that 
Aristophanes^  is  any  more  likely  to  be  influenced  by  Euripides  in 
this  passage  {Plidus  567)  than  was  Demosthenes  (xxiv.  124). 
Eupolis  attacks  the  strategoi  (frags.  117,  205),  and  how  much  early 
iambic  poets  may  have  anticipated  comedy  in  this  satirical  tendency 
can  only  be  guessed  from  Archilochus  (frag.  58  Bergk).  The  deeper 
significance  of  the  whole  matter  may  be  suggested  if  one  follows  back 
the  attack  on  the  manteis,  which  is  a  commonplace  of  tragedy.  It 
is  the  Sicilian  comic  poet,  Epicharmus,  who  attacks  the  manteis  in 
frag.  9  Kaibel;  and  it  is  probable  that  back  of  Epicharmus  in  the 
tradition  is  Aristoxenus  of  Sehnus,^  whom  Epicharmus  knew  as  an 
iambograph  (cf.  Epich.  frag.  88  Kaibel).  In  other  words  the  earliest 
evidence  of  the  whole  general  feature  traces  a  possible  line  of  tradition 
from  early  satirical  poetry  through  Sicilian  comedy  to  later  comedy, 

i/5id.,  131. 

«  Leo  seems  to  make  much  of  the  stereotyped  use,  by  Euripides  and  the  comic  poets, 
of  genus  and  yho'i  in  these  diatribes;  yet  this  passage  of  the  Antigone  has  the  same 
word,  and  to  compare  only  Orestes  895  and  Curculio  499  in  this  connection  distorts 
the  relation  between  Euripides  and  comedy. 

3  The  style  of  Aristophanes  is  not  always  that  of  New  comedy;  but  the  passage 
of  the  Plutus  5G7  is  a  close  parallel;  other  ways  of  securing  the  same  ends  are  illus- 
trated by  Plutus  30-31  and  160  ff.  Of  course  it  has  l>een  often  noted  that  the  attack 
on  Socrates  is  directed  against  a  group  or  type,  rather  than  the  individual,  but  that 
is  another  matter.  Some  of  the  material  used  here  I  owe  to  Mr.  W.  A.  Rae,  who  is 
preparing  a  study  of  such  attacks  on  social  and  professional  groups  as  they  appear  in 
satire,  comedy,  tragedy,  and  epigram. 

*  Aristoxenus  ap.  Hephaest.  p.  49.4:  tIs  dXa^oviav  irXdarav  irap^x^^  "^^^  dv6pJ}7ru}v; 
Tol  fidvreLS.  The  meter  seems  to  be  anapaestic;  nor  is  Archilochus'  attack  on  the 
strategos  in  iambic  verse. 


136 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


and  tragedy  may  be  simply  a  side  issue  in  the  whole  story.  One 
may  perhaps  wonder  how  much  of  the  supposed  relation  of  comedy 
to  Euripides  would  disappear  if  we  had  Epicharmus. 

In  the  broader  aspects  of  this  critical  attitude  toward  life  and 
society  the  mere  admission  that  contemporary  life  and  contemporary 
ethics  are  contributing  factors  appreciably  reduces  the  amount  of 
Euripidean  influence.  It  is,  as  Leo  says,  "die  euripideische  Weise,'' 
the  manner  rather  than  the  matter,  that  appears  in  Hellenistic  and 
Roman  comedy.  The  characters  are  nmch  given  to  general  philoso- 
phizing and  to  reformatory  proposals,  and  there  are  often  points  of 
contact  in  phraseology.  Leo's  evidence  suffices  to  establish  this 
manner  as  Greek  rather  than  Roman,  but  whether  it  is  important 
that  Philemon  took  over  from  Euripides  this  style  of  proposing 
reforms  in  the  arrangement  of  the  world  and  of  life  and  developed 
it  in  comedy,^  is  not  so  immediately  clear.  What  is  the  peculiar 
Euripidean  manner?  As  Leo  defines  it,  the  reformer  as  a  self- 
appointed  lawgiver  proposes  a  betterment  of  the  world,  an  improve- 
ment of  existing  law  and  custom,  which  cannot  be  realized  and 
appears  paradoxical  in  comparison  with  present  arrangements  ;2 
Leo's  examples  show,  in  phraseology,  a  constant  recurrence  to  set 
forms  of  expression:  verbs  of  obligation,  nomos  and  lex,  conditional 
forms  like  ''hoc  si  ita  fiat,  mores  meliores  parent"  {Aid.  492).  The 
material  Leo  gathers  is  rich;  yet  I  am  skeptical  of  its  significance. 
So,  for  example,  he  generously  provides  in  a  footnote^  material  that 
proves  that  at  least  the  conditional  formula  appears,  not  only  in 
Euripides  and  New  comedy,  but  in  elegy,  historical  prose,  oratory, 
and  didactic  treatise;  and  I  begin  to  wonder  if  the  nomos  and  lex 
are  anything  more  than  a  natural  resort  of  the  legal-minded  Greek 
and  Roman.  Spontaneous  generation  may  have  to  bo  included  in 
the  final  appraisal  of  the  material.  So  if  I  wished  to  propose  a 
needed  reform  I  should  easily,  in  ignorance  of  Leo's  material,  express 
myself  in  the  words:  "If  classical  philologists  would  less  hastily 
draw  inferences  from  parallel  passages,  their  conclusions  would  be 
sounder."     Not  being  legal-minded  I  neglect  to  propose  a  law;   but 

»  Op.  cit.,  122.  Satyrus,  I  think,  anticipated  Leo  in  this  inference  (cf .  above,  p.  116, 
n.  1),  with  evidence  from  Philemon's  text.  Nor  do  I  mean  to  deny  that  these  reforma- 
tory programs  are  as  such  essentially  Euripidean. 

*Ihid.,  118.  .  *Ihid.,  117.  n.  1. 


The  Antecedents  of  Helle|^istic  Comedy 


137 


I  am  proposing  a  fantastic  rearrangement  of  current  procedure  that 
will  not  be  realized,  and  in  a  commonplace  conditional  formula.  By 
this  momentary  flippancy,  however,  I  do  not  presume  to  demolish 
the  structure  erected  by  Leo's  discriminating  analysis ;  I  only  ask  that 
into  the  ultimate  evaluation  of  this  and  other  aspects  of  the  resem- 
blance between  Euripides  and  New  comedy  there  should  not  enter 
too  much  laboring  of  the  eternal  commonplace. 

The  protagonist  of  the  Euripidean  theory  is,  from  my  standpoint, 
much  more  cautious  in  his  statements  than  many  of  his  disciples. 
At  times  he  says,^  regarding  comedy,  that  ^'die  Form  war  durch  die 
Tragodie  gegeben,  der  Inhalt  war  grade  der  Stoff  des  taglichen 
Lebens."  ....  For  expository  purposes,  it  is  not  convenient  for 
me  to  treat  form  and  content  altogether  apart  from  each  other;  but 
hitherto  I  have  been  stressing  the  point  that  the  material  of  comedy 
has  little  or  no  substantial  relation  to  Euripidean  tragedy;  it  remains 
to  consider  the  stronger  supports  of  the  modern  theory,  the  coherent 
form  of  later  comedy,  the  prologue  and  monologue,  the  various  devices 
of  technique  which  Euripides  seems  to  share  with  the  comic  poets. 

University  of  Chicago 
»  Gesch.  d.  rOm.  Lit.,  I,  101. 


[To  be  concluded] 


Reprinted  for  private  circulation  from 
Classical  Philology,  Vol.  XIV,  No.  4,  April   1919 


THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  HELLENISTIC  COMEDY 

By  Henry  W.  Prescott 

VI 

Even  if,  as  I  have  suggested,^  the  indebtedness  of  comedy  to 
Euripides  in  the  material  of  plot  is  not  so  large  in  amount  or  so 
significant  in  kind  as  modern  critics  have  represented,  it  still  remains 
quite  possible  that  in  form  comedy  is  dependent  upon  Euripidean 
tragedy.  Into  a  mold  provided  by  a  different  type  of  literature 
comedy  may  have  poured  a  new  content.  Indeed  it  is  undoubtedly 
the  striking  contrast  between  the  looser  epirrhematic  and  episodic 
structure  of  Aristophanic  comedy  and  the  organic  coherence  of 
Hellenistic  comedy,  as  seen  in  the  Roman  copies,  that  has  led  modern 
scholars  to  reject  the  ancient  theory  in  the  prolegomena  and  to  stress 
heavily  the  broad  resemblance,  in  point  of  unity,  between  later 
comedy  and  Euripides.  Nor  do  the  variations  in  the  structure  of 
Aristophanic  comedy  effected  by  the  postponement  of  the  agon  to  the 
second  half  of  the  play,  and  by  the  diminished  role  of  the  chorus  in 
the  Ecclesiazusae  and  the  Pliitus,  very  appreciably  lessen  the  gap  in 
this  respect  between  Aristophanic  and  Hellenistic  comedy. 

Taking  organic  structure  in  the  broadest  sense,  before  we  imme- 
diately accept  the  Euripidean  theory,  must  we  not  ask  ourselves,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  full  and  specific  relation  between  the 
plots  of  Euripides  and  those  of  the  later  comedy  of  manners,  whether 
the  comic  plot  of  the  later  period,  without  any  immediate  inter- 
vention of  earlier  or  contemporary  tragedy,  does  not  bring  into  the 
comic  drama  at  once  a  degree  of  coherent  structure  that  the  mere 
themes  of  Aristophanic  comedy  made  impossible  in  the  scurrilous 
plays  of  the  fifth  century  ?  These  comic  plots  of  the  fourth  and  later 
'^enturies  are  not  homogeneous;  the  twenty-six  Roman  plaj^s  reveal 
a  variety  of  plots,  and  the  Greek  titles  and  fragments  increase  this 
variety.  The  comedy  of  manners,  with  which  alone  we  are  at  present 
concerned,  may  have  been  a  renascence  of  one  kind  of  Sicilian-Attic 
comedy,  or  it  may  have  issued  inunediately  from  the  private  life 


^CP,  XIII  (1918),  113  ff. 
[Classical  Philology  XIV,  April,  1919J 


108 


109 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


of  the  fourth  century.  Its  precise  origin  does  not  matter  for  our 
present  purpose.  Of  its  various  plots  a  conunon  one,  which  we  may 
use  for  illustration,  is  the  story  of  a  young  lover  prevented  from 
indulging  his  love  for  a  courtezan  by  obstacles,  usually  of  a  pecuniary 
sort;  the  lover  himself,  or  a  slave,  or  parasite  obtains  the  required 
financial  help,  usually  through  some  swindling  intrigue,  and,  often 
further  assisted  by  the  discovery  of  the  courtezan's  free  birth,  attains 
his  end.i  That  such  a  plot  is  the  issue  of  any  slow  literary  evolution 
is  difficult  for  me  to  believe.  The  broad  outline  of  this  story  offers 
in  itself  a  beginning,  middle,  and  end,  with  obstacles  and  means  of 
solution  that  are  easily  varied  and  multiplied. 

It  is  quite  superfluous  for  tragedy  to  superimpose  upon  this  type 
of  plot  a  general  coherence  and  logical  organization  which  it  already 
possesses.  It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  quite  true  that  mythological 
comedy ,2  which  had  prevailed  in  the  period  immediately  preceding 
the  vogue  of  the  comedy  of  manners,  had  in  many  instances  acquired 
an  organic  structure  by  being  a  travesty  of  well-organized  tragedy; 
and  one  cannot  easily  say  how  conscious  of  the  advantages  of  an 
organic  form  comic  poets  may  have  become  through  constant 
witnessing  of  tragic  dramas  as  well  as  by  intermittent  perversions  of 
tragic  plots.  ]My  point  is  merely  that  the  material  of  the  comic  plots 
is  almost  entirely  independent  of  tragedy,  and  that  the  unity,  in  a 
broad  sense,  is  possibly  furnished,  without  any  long  period  of  artistic 
development,  by  the  simple  realistic  tale  of  human  experiences. 

1  The  theme  is  a  variant  of  the  eternal  commonplace  which  Post  {Hart.  Stud.  Class. 
Phil,  XXIV  [1913],  U2)  reduces  to  a  formula.  The  broad  similarity  to  the  plots  of 
later  Greek  romances  is  obvious.  The  romances  themselves,  however,  are  often  called 
dramata  by  their  authors;  this  implication  of  dramatic  influence  upon  the  romances 
makes  it  difficult  to  assert  that  early  -prose  fiction,  no  longer  extant,  contributed  to  the 
material  of  comedy.  But  the  possibility  is  always  open;  for  interesting  reflections  cf. 
Mahaffy,  Greek  Life  and  Thought,  118  ff.:  Bousset.  Ztschr.  fUr  die  neulestamentl.  Wiss., 
V  (1904),  18  ff.:  Mendell,  CP,  XII  (1917),  161  ff.;  and  specially  Thiele,  Hermes, 
XLVIII  (1913),  536,  n.  1,  539,  n.  1. 

2  The  salient  facts  regardisg  mythological  comedy  seem  to  me  to  be  that  (1)  oral 
tale  and  epic  must  have  brought  some  unity  into  mythological  comedy  before  tragedy 
exerted  any  influence;  (2)  thaf  the  influence  of  tragedy  was  exerted  probably  as  cart- 
as the  time  of  Epicharmus;  (3)  that  mythological  comedy  was  probably  infinitely 
varied,  (a)  as  illustrated  by  the  Plutus,  which  suggests  the  loose  unity  provided  by  the 
application  of  a  legend  with  allegorical  implications  to  contemporary  life,  (6)  by  the 
Dionusalexandros,  in  which  fantastic  perversion  of  myth  could  hardly  have  promoted 
unity  at  all,  (c)  by  the  Amphitruo,  which  shows  the  high  degree  of  unity  attainable 
through  the  fusion  of  a  tragic  plot  with  a  comedy  of  errors. 


Henry  W.  Phescott 


110 


Politics,  Uterature,  and  philosophy  did  not  supply  Aristophanes  with 
themes  that  were  inherently  dramatic  and  easily  organized  into 
effective  dramatic  chapters,  but  typical  experiences  of  real  life,  such 
as  the  recurrent  plots  of  New  comedy  reveal,  hardly  need  the  impress 
of  tragedy  before  they  can  assume  at  least  a  considerable  degree  of 
organic  unity. 

However  al^stract  and  a  priori  this  reasoning  is  (as  it  must  be  in 
the  dearth  of  positive  evidence),  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that 
before  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  the  general  coherence  of  the 
comedy  of  manners  is  recognized  by  a  comic  poet,  Antiphanes;  the 
invention  of  the  presuppositions,  of  the  facts  of  the  plot ,  of  the  exposi- 
tion, and  of  the  catastrophe,  in  comedy  as  well  as  in  tragedy,  he  seems 
to  view  in  a  detached  and  conscious  fashion  and  to  describe  them  in 
terms  that  to  some  extent  suggest  an  almost  academic  attitude  toward 
dramatic  structure  and  an  apparatus  of  technical  labels.  He  is 
referring  to  the  advantages  of  tragedy  in  dealing  with  stories  familiar 
to  the  audience,  supplied  with  characters  whose  names  and  expe- 
riences are  already  known,  and  in  having  the  mechane  available  for 
emergency;  in  contrast  therewith  he  puts  the  comic  poets  who  have 
to  invent  everything— new  names,  presuppositions,  plot,  catastrophe, 
exposition.  It  should  be  clearly  understood  that  the  fragment  refers 
to  the  invention  of  the  facts  of  exposition,  catastrophe,  presupposi- 
tions, and  main  action;  th^  form  of  the  comic  plot,  apparently,  is 
assumed  to  be  approximately  that  of  the  tragic  plot,  and  the  labels 
are  applicable  to  both  types. ^ 

Modern  criticism,  however,  does  not  limit  itself  to  a  statement 
that  the  coherence,  in  a  very  broad  sense,  of  later  comedy  is  largely 


rjixiv  be  raDr'  ovu  taTLv,  dXXd  iravTa  Set 
(vpe7p,  bvo^ara  Kaiva,  < 

>KaTveLTa  to.  OLc^Kfj/ueua 
irpoTipov,  TO.  vvv  TvapovTa,  ttju  KaTa(TTpo4>r]v^ 
rriv  da^ioXriv.     av  tv  tl  tovto^v  TrapaXiirr} 
Xpc/iTys  TLS  rj  ^^elduiv  tls,  eKavpLTTerai' 
IlT^Xei  5e  raCr'  e^tari  Kal  TevKpu>  Troteiv. 

[A then.  222  A,  frag.  191,  Kock] 
The  contrast  between  Chremes  and  Pheidon,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Peleus  and 
Teucer,  on  the  other,  seems  to  make  certain  an  allusion  to  a  comedy  of  manners,  not 
to  mythological  travesty.  The  complications,  the  cpitasis  of  Donatus  on  Terence, 
are  covered,  if  at  all,  only  in  rd  vvv  irapovra.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Antiphanes  is 
referring  mainly  to  exposition  and  solution.     Ancient  literary  criticism  of  comedy, 


Ill 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


effected  under  the  influence  of  the  organic  structure  of  Greek  tragedy. 
It  undertakes  to  establish  a  more  specific  structural  relation  between 
the  two  types.^  The  Latin  plays  reveal  in  the  text  conditions  that 
point  to  the  possibility  of  a  ''vacant  stage"  at  intervals  in  the 
production  of  a  given  play;  taking  some  but  not  all  of  these  possibly 
''vacant  stages"  to  be  indications  of  real  and  essential  pauses  in  tlie 
action,  modern  critics  posit  a  division  of  the  Latin  plays  into  chapters 
of  action  which  in  Roman  comedy  is  supposed  to  be  an  obscured 
reproduction  of  more  clearly  marked  act  division  in  the  Greek 
originals;  this  act  division  in  the  Greek  originals  is  itself  supposed 
to  be  the  result  of  a  development  in  which  tragedy  plays  a  dominant 
part.  For  later  Greek  comedy  seems  on  occasion,  if  not  always,  to 
have  separated  chapters  of  action  from  one  another  by  an  inorganic 
intermezzo  chorus,  or  interlude  scenes,  or  flute  nmsic — all  of  which 
might  easily  be  substitutes  for  a  relative!}'  organic  inter-act  chorus 
such  as,  in  Greek  tragedy,  regularly  divides,  or  connects,  the  six  or 
seven  smaller  chapters  of  action  which  constitute  the  play.  The 
"vacant  stages,"  therefore,  of  the  Latin  plays  become  a  final  issue 
in  the  development  from  a  choral  drama  in  which  the  chorus  is 
organic,  through  later  Greek  comedy  in  which  inorganic  features, 
largely  musical  and  often  choral,  marked  the  end  of  acts,  to  a  dramatic 
form  in  which  "vacant  stages"  providing  essential  pauses  in  the 

as  it  issues  in  Euarithius  and  Donatus,  deserves  more  attention  than  it  has  received; 
the  theory  of  structure  in  these  Latin  comments  on  Terence  may  be  patchwork  in  its 
present  form,  but  it  has  remote  and  honorable  antecedents.  On  katastrophe  and 
eisbole  of.  Leo,  PL  Forsch.-,  233,  and  nn.  1,2;  on  katastrophe  I  might  add  the  mime 
(vs.  16)  edited  by  Koerte,  Archiv.  fur  Papyrusforsch.,  VI  (1913),  1  ff.,  with  which  cf. 
katastole  in  another  mime  (Oxyrhynch.  Pap.,  Ill,  Xo.  413,  vs.  95)  and  in  the  schoHum 
on  Aristoph.  Peace  1204. 

1  If  any  complete  analj'sis  of  the  internal  stmcture  of  the  Latin  plays  had  been 
made,  I  should  naturally  discuss  it  at  this  point.  In  default  of  such  a  study  and  for 
convenience  in  my  own  exposition  I  take  up  the  theory  of  act  division;  for,  though 
this  problem  is  a  matter  of  external  and  mechanical  structure  from  one  standpoint, 
Leo  and  other  critics  assert  that  the  choral  songs  of  tragedy  set  off  logical  units,  and 
that  the  act  division  in  Roman  comedy  often  coincides  with  the  logical  chapters  of  the 
plot,  as,  e.g..  Act  I,  Exposition;  II-III,  Complication;  IV-V,  Solution.  This  asser- 
tion, so  far  as  Greek  tragedy  is  concerned,  is  vigorously  contested  by  Holzapfel, 
Kennt  die  griech.  Tragodie  eine  Akteinteilung  ?  (Giessen,  1914),  who  convinces  himself 
that  choral  stasima  are  not  at  all  regularly  the  boundaries  of  logical  chapters,  although 
tragedy  does  provide  "bestimmte  Richtlinien  fiir  das  Entstehen  von  fiinf  Akten" 
(p.  96).  I  have  accepted,  however,  Leo's  assumptions  in  the  argument  above  without 
raising  the  question  whether  or  not  the  so-called  acts  in  tragedy  or  comedy  are  logical 
units;   it  seems  proper  to  meet  Leo  on  his  own  ground. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


112 


action  supplant  the  interludes  that  in  the  earher  forms  kept  the 
scenic  background  constantly  occupied.^ 

For  brevity,  I  may  state  somewhat  categorically  the  generally 
accepted  facts,  so  far  as  I  can  discover  them  in  the  tangle  of  modern 
discussion:  (1)  Sophoclean  and  Euripidean  tragedies  fall  into  six  or 
seven  chapters  of  action  set  off  l)y  choral  songs.  (2)  The  Ecde- 
siaziisae  and  Plutus  of  Aristophanes  are  susceptible  of  division  into 
six  or  seven  chapters;  Aristophanes  is  supposed  by  some  scholars 
to  have  written  for  these  later  plaj^s  choral  interludes,  man}^  of  which 
have  not  survived.  (3)  Hellenistic  theory,  perhaps  derived  from 
contemporary  practice,  divided  tragedy  into  five  acts;  the  practice 
is  perhaps  reflected  in  Senecan  tragedy.  (4)  There  is  no  evidence 
that  H(^llenistic  comedy  operated  regularly  with  a  theory  of  five 
acts,  though  the  Epitrepontcs  of  Alenaiidcr  seems,  in  its  present 
fragmentary  condition,  to  have  indications  of  at  least  four  acts  set 
off  by  the  label  chorou,  and  the  koinos-chorus  is  here  and  elsewhere  in 
New  comedy  a  distinguishing  mark  of  division  into  mere.  (5)  It  is 
evident  that  Varro  and  others,  probably  under  the  influence  of 
Hellenistic  theory  and  method,  attempted  with  difficulty  to  divide 
the  plays  of  Terence  into  five  acts,  and  sixteenth-century  editors  of 
Plautus  somewhat  violently  followed  a  similar  procedure  in  their 
texts  of  the  poet.  That  either  Plautus  or  Terence  conscious^ 
organized  his  plays  into  an}"  definite  number  of  acts  is  made  unlikely 
by  the  known  facts  of  Varronian  act  division  and  by  the  present 
condition  of  the  texts,  but  either  or  both  may,  distinctly  or  obscurely, 
reflect  act  division  in  their  Greek  originals.  (6)  In  Leo's  attempt  to 
discriminate  mere  in  the  Roman  plays,  using  '' vacant  stages''  and 
other  criteria,  the  number  of  such  acts  varies  from  a  minimum  of 
three  to  a  maxinuim  of  seven:  about  one-third  of  the  total  number 
of  plays  have  five  acts,  the  four-act  and  six-act  pla3's  are  almost  as 
numerous  as  the  five-act  plays,  and  divisions  into  three  and  seven 
acts  are  represented  each  by  several  plays.^ 

1  In  Leo's  view  plots  of  intrigue  force  the  organic  chorus  out  of  the  comedy  of 
manners  (Der  Monolog,  39,  41),  and  ultimately  the  inorganic  chorus  is  replaced  by 
flute  music  or  by  spoken  interlude  (PL  Forsch.'^,  227,  n.  3). 

2  For  the  facts  in  this  paragraph  and  further  details  cf.  Leo,  PL  Forsch.-,  226  ff. ; 
Der  Monolog,  49  ff.;  Legrand,  Daos,  464  ff.  On  the  fragment  of  thb  Epitrepontcs, 
which  adds  a  new  chorou  to  the  play,  cf.  Oxyrhynch.  Pap.,  X  (1914),  88  ff.  P'or  a  brief 
summary  and  criticjue  cf.  Conrad,  The  Technique  of  Continuous  Action  in  Roman 
Comedy\l915),  1  ff.,  ably  reviewed  by  Flickinger,  Class.  Weekly,  X  (1916-17),  147  ff. 


113 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


This  array  of  facts,  it  seems  to  me,  is  far  from  satisfactory  as  a 
support  for  the  view  that  Hellenistic  comedy  owes  its  structural 
organization  to  tragedy.     The  relation  between  tragedy  and  the  two 
later  plays  of  Aristophanes  may  or  may  not  be  significant,  but  how  or 
why  in  the  Hellenistic  period  a  five-act  theory  or  practice  developed 
in  tragedy  is  unknown,  and  that  a  five-act  division,  or  any  other 
uniform  act  division,  prevailed  in  Hellenistic  comedy  is  not  sub- 
stantiated by  the  evidence.     In  tragedy  the  chorus  is  tlie  germ  of  the 
dramatic  form,  and  as  such  is  an  inalienable  organic  element,  which, 
with   an    occasional    exception    such   as  Agathon's   cmbolima,   only 
slowly  acquires  a  detachable  inorganic  character.     In  comedy  the 
chorus,  though  relatively  organic  in  the  first  part  of  an  Aristophanic 
play,  becomes  generally  inorganic  in  the  second  part,  in  which  often 
topical  songs  set  off  episodic  dialogue;    and  the  somewhat  dubious 
early  history  of  the  type  provides  for  a  chorus  only  as  an  alien  element. 
In  brief,  for  the  broad  characteristics  of  the  Menandrian  kojuos  as  an 
inorganic  clement  (also,  of  course,  as  composed  of  drunken  revelers 
primarily)  ever}^  preparation  is  made  in  earher  comedy;  tragedy,  on 
the  other  hand,  offers  inherent  obstacles  to  such  a  development.     It 
is  true,  however,  that  early  comedy,  as  we  now  know  it,  does  not 
furnish  a  structure  in  which  logically  connected  chapters  of  dialogue 
are  consistently  set  off  by  choral  songs;  this  structure,  now  vaguely 
indicated  in  the  Epitrcpontes,  finds  a  better  background  in  fifth- 
century  tragedy  than  in  any  known  form  of  earlier  comedy.     We 
might  easily  admit  the  influence  of  tragedy  in  this  matter  if  we  were 
not  troubled  by  the  thought  that  in  non-scurrilous  comedy  of  the 
fifth  century  the  chorus,  if  it  continued  to  be  employed,  might  have 
affected  the  structure  of  the  plays  and  established  a  form  which  we 
may  describe  as  resembhng  the  present  text  of  the  Plutus,  but  with 
choral  interludes  replacing  the  label  chorou  in  the  present  text  of  that 
pla}-.     This  form  need  not  have  been  so  directly  due  to  the  influence 
of  tragedy,  but  may  have  arisen  as  a  compromise  between  non-choral 
Sicilian  comedy  and  choral  scurrilous  comedy.     In  any  case  it  is  well 
to  remember  that,  however  a  chorus  may  find  its  way  into  the  drama 
at  the  start,  once  there  it  is  very  quickly  made  to  perform  desirable 
economic  functions;  the  economic  necessity  of  working  with  a  limited 
number  of  actors  and  tiie  artistic  regard  for  a  plausible  representa- 
tion, however  rough,  of  the  lapse  of  time  are  neatly  satisfied  by  the 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


114 


choral  interlude;  and  in  a  non-choral  drama  the  same  objects  are 
obtained  by  interlude  music,  by  stationary  scenes,  or  by  substantial 
pauses.  One  would  suppose,  however,  if  the  chorus  or  any  kind  of 
interlude  is  so  important  for  economic  purposes,  that  such  interludes 
would  for  a  considerable  period  in  the  development  of  drama  appear 
whenever  the  dramatist  needed  to  cover  time  for  off-stage  action,  or 
for  change  of  roles,  or  both,  and  that  therefore  the  logical  unity  of  a 
chapter  of  action  between  two  interludes  would  not  be  a  primary 
consideration.  It  is  of  course  likely  that  a  new  phase  of  action  will 
begin  after  an  interlude,  and  in  course  of  time  a  conscious  regard  for 
symmetry  may  lead  to  the  demarcation  of  logical  units  b}'  interludes; 
and  ultimately  such  logical  chapters  may  be  fixed  in  number.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  they  did  become  so  fixed  in  later  Greek  or  Roman 
comedy,  but  only  that  a  var^^ing  number  of  chapters  is  set  off  by 
various  sorts  of  interludes. 

In  the  Latin  plays,  if  one  is  not  blinded  b}-  the  Euripidean  theory, 
the  visible  facts  are,  first  and  primarily,  that  the  structure  in  general 
points  to  a  concern  in  the  Roman  theater  for  continuous  action  rather 
than  for  action  interrupted  by  substantial  pauses,  least  of  all  by  any 
regularly  recurring  number  of  pauses  in  individual  pla3^s;^  secondly, 
that  there  are  in  some  plays  conditions  which,  obscurely  or  distinctly, 
suggest  a  division  into  mere  in  the  Greek  originals. 

May  I  illustrate  from  the  Fersa  my  own  attitude  toward  ''vacant 
stages"  and  consequent  act  division,  so  far  as  Roman  productions 
are  concerned  ?  There  are  six  possi})le  vacant  stages,  at  52,  167,  250, 
328,  399,  and  752.  At  53  ff.  Saturio's  monologue  fills  the  interval  of 
Toxilus'  absence;  in  other  words,  it  performs  the  same  function  as 
the  vacant  stage  posited  at  52,  witii  the  added  and,  of  course,  essential 
function  of  introducing  us  to  the  character  of  the  parasite.  At 
168  ff.  Sophoclidisca's  patter-talk  fills  the  interval  of  Toxilus' 
absence  (167-83),  again  precisely  what  a  substantial  pause  at  167 
would  have  accomplished;  why  duplicate  the  devices  for  filling  time 
intervals  ?2     At  250  Sagaristio's  monody  similarly  fills  the  interval 

1  For  the  details  of  an  argument  along  these  lines  cf.  Conrad,  op.  cit. 

2  An  argument  that,  for  example,  more  time  is  needed  between  1G7  and  183  than 
is  provided  by  the  text  of  167-82,  and  that  therefore  a  substantival  pause  at  167  is 
required  in  addition  to  167-82,  is  made  difhcull  by  the  general  consideration  of  time 
intervals  in  comedv  such  as  Conrad  sketches  {op.  cit.,  19-34). 


115 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


between  the  departure  and  return  of  Paej!;niuni  and  links  two  chapters 
of  the  action.  At  752,  just  as  738-52  have  made  it  possible  for  Toxi- 
lus  departing  at  737  to  return  at  753,  so  753-76  are  arranged  to  allow 
Dordalus,  making  his  exit  at  752,  to  return  in  777;  in  brief,  the  action 
around  the  supposed  vacant  stage  is  obviously  so  interlocked  as  to 
serve  the  same  econonn'c  purpose  that  a  substantial  pause  in  the 
action  at  752  would  adequately  meet;  accordingly  the  substantial 
pause  becomes  quite  unlikely.  With  regard  to  328  and  399  the  case 
is  different,  and  taken  by  themselves  these  places  admit  pauses  so 
far  as  the  text  is  concerned,  but  (1)  if  the  other  four  supposed  pauses 
are  rightly  eliminated  it  is  not  likely  that  these  two  places,  only 
seventy  lines  apart,  mark  substantial  breaks  in  otherwise  continuous 
action;  (2)  a  pause  at  399  breaks  the  action  at  a  point  at  which  rapid 
action  in  the  execution  of  the  intrigue  is  highly  desirable;  (3)  if  my 
suggestions  in  CP,  XI,  129,  n.  2  have  any  validity,  the  distribution 
of  roles  might  point  to  306-28  as  devised,  in  part,  to  provide  for 
Sophoclidisca's  assuming  the  role  of  the  parasite  at  329,  a  condition 
which  would  make  unlikely  a  pause  at  328.^ 

Now  if  we  turn  from  the  Latin  play  to  the  Greek  original  and  ask 
ourselves  whether  any  or  all  of  the  six  possible  pauses  in  the  Latin 
text  of  the  Persa  were  either  real  pauses  or  musical  interludes  of  some 
sort  in  the  Greek  text,  we  face  a  very  difficult  question.  We  observe 
that  the  Latin  text  does  not,  implicitly  or  explicitly,  suggest  the 
existence  in  the  Greek  original  of  an  inorganic  chorus.  And  the 
same  arguments  against  flute  music  would  apply  to  the  Greek  original 
(if  its  text  was  essentialh^  the  same  as  the  Latin  text)  as  we  have 
applied  to  four  of  the  supposed  vacant  stages  of  the  Latin  copy.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  Greek  text  was  essentially  different  from  the 
Latin  text,  and  if  interludes  other  than  monologue  and  monody  took 
the  place  of  the  parasite's  monologue,  of  Sophoclidisca's  talk,  Saga- 
ristio's  monody,  etc.,  we  have  difficulty  in  imagining  just  how  the 
Greek  play  could  have  been  constructed,  and  w^e  also  have  to  admit 
an  extraordinary,  not  to  say  incredible,  originality  on  the  part  of 

1  That  is,  if  there  were  a  substantial  pause  at  328,  this  pause  would  supply  the 
time  needed  for  change  of  roles,  and  the  present  condition  of  the  text,  as  regards  306-28, 
would  not  be  so  easily  explained.  But  of  course  I  do  not  contend  that  the  distribution 
of  roles  in  this  play  is  so  certain  as  to  lend  any  great  weight  to  this  point. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


116 


Plautus.^  I  leave  to  partisans  of  act  division  the  issue;  for  myself  I 
seriously  question  whether  the  Greek  original  of  the  Pcrsa  in  these 
large  structural  features  was  essentially  different  from  the  present 
Latin  text. 

Granting  this,  I  observe  with  perfect  equanimity  that  the 
Heautontimorumenos'^  contains  evidence  that  an  inorganic  chorus 
operated  in  the  Greek  original;  some  of  the  vacant  stages  in  the 
Latin  text  very  distinctly  point  to  interludes  in  the  Greek  performance 
such  as  we  seem  to  have  indicated  in  the  Epitrepontes.  And  this 
diversity,  represented  in  two  plays,  I  feel  perfectly  free  to  extend 
indefinitely,  not  being  hampered  by  any  theor}^  of  exclusive  or  large 
dependence  upon  Greek  tragedy,  which  inclines  modern  critics  to 
put  Hellenistic  corned}^  in  a  strait-jacket  of  uniformity  and  regularit\\^ 


VII 

The  discussion  of  vacant  stages  and  of  act  division  is  much 
affected  by  the  view  that  these  and  other  aspects  of  Hellenistic  and 
Roman  comedy  are  the  issues  of  a  development  from  choral  to  non- 
choral  drama.  This  development  is  suggested  by  many  visible 
conditions  in  the  texts  of  Old  and  New  comedy  and  is  explicitly 
stated  in  ancient  theory,  which  describes  Old  comedy  as  choral  and 
later  comedy  as  at  first  removing  the  chorus  but  leaving  a  place  for  it, 
and  then  not  even  leaving  a  place  for  it.  The  last  two  periods  of 
development   in    ancient   theory   are   represented   respectively   by 

1  It  ni;jy  be  observed  that  there  are  no  monologues  before  o2,  107,  and  250  (a  very 
brief  one  before  167).  This  condition  suggests  that  the  solo  speeches  and  songs  at 
52  ff.,  167  ff.,  and  250  ff.  are  surrogates  in  a  non-choral  drama  of  a  chorus  in  choral 
drama,  in  so  far  as  they  fill  intervals  of  time  primarily,  though  not  exclusively,  as  docs 
a  chorus.     Why  may  they  not  have  performed  this  function  in  the  Greek  original  ? 

2  The  conditions  are  particularly  good  at  409,  where  a  night  intervenes:  at  748, 
where  the  ancillae  may  pass  across  the  stage;  and  at  873,  where  the  old  men  re-enter, 
having  just  left  the  stage  at  872.  At  229  I  see  no  clear  evidence  of  a  break  in  the 
action;  nor  am  I  fully  convinced  by  the  arguments  of  Skutsch  and  Flickinger  regarding 
the  condition  of  the  Greek  original  at  170, 

3  The  technique  which  I  discern  in  the  Greek  original  of  the  Pcrsa  is  roughly 
analogous  to  admittedly  Greek  technique  in  other  Roman  plays  in  which  interlude 
scenes,  spoken  or  sung,  are  found,  e.g.,  Captivi  460-98,  909-21,  Cure.  462-86,  Most. 
313-47  (cf.  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  59  and  n.  2,  PL  Forsch.^,  227,  n.  3).  Leo's  contention  that 
such  spoken  and  sung  interludes  are  suVjstituted  in  the  Greek  originals  for  the  chorus 
only  relatively  late  and  in  the  period  of  the  technifae,  I  should  meet  with  the  question 
why  they  might  not  have  appeared  at  any  time  in  a  non-choral  drama. 


117 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


INIenandcr  and  by  the  Latin  poets;  and  the  Latin  poets,  })y  not  even 
leaving  a  place  for  the  chorus,  made  (hflicult  a  division  into  the  five 
acts  which  in   the  Greek  ori<i;ina]s  were  clearly   distinguished  by 
choral  passao-es  or  by  the  lai)el  chorou}     That  Alenandrian  coniedv 
often  justified  such  a  statement  of  the  case  I  see  no  reason  to  question. 
But  ancient  theory,  as  I  have  elsewhere  indicated  {CI\  XII,  409), 
seems  to  be  operatinj^;  with  a  selected  mass  of  material;    when  it 
sj)eaks  of  Old  comed}'  it  betrays  no  knowledg;e  of  Crates  and  Phere- 
crates;  when  it  discusses  New  comedy  it  often,  as  above,  concentrates 
upon  Menander.     We  may  concede,  however,  the  truth  and.  value 
of  the  broad  g'eneralization  in  ancient  theory  without  closing  our 
minds  to  other  facts.     A  non-choral  type  of  drama  has  prol)lems  in 
connnon  with  choral  drama  but  must  meet  them  without  a  chorus. 
Such  problems,  for  example,  are  presented  by  a  limited  number  of 
actors,  by  the  necessity  of  covering  plausibly  time  intervals,  and  by 
peculiarities  of  the  stage  setting.     Time  for  off-stage  action  and  for 
change  of  roles  is  easily  provided  by  a  chorus,  whether  organic  or 
inorganic;   non-choral  drama  is  driven  to  a  variety  of  substitutes  for 
the  chorus — to  lyrical  intermezzos  by  single  actors  or  small  groups 
of  actors,  to  instrumental  music,  to  dances,  to  monologues,  or  to 
dialogue  scenes  that  may  not  always  promote  the  action.     It  requires 
not  a  little  skill  to  bridge  gaps  with  scenes,  whether  spoken  or  sung, 
which  are  inseparable  organic  units  and  are  not  too  manifestly  mere 
bridges.     With  these  considerations  in  mind  we  may  better  appreciate 
the  most  striking  feature  of  the  technique  of  New  comedy. 

The  difference  between  my  own  views  and  the  tendencies  of 
modern  criticism  may  be  illustrated  by  a  brief  criticism  of  Leo's 
theory  of  the  monologue.^  To  understand  his  argum.ent  we  must 
outline  the  results  of  his  study,  which,  by  its  scope,  by  the  thorough 
marshaling  of  material,  by  the  nice  discrimination  of  styHstic  qual- 
ities, and  by  the  historical  perspective  of  the  investigator,  excites  the 
greatest  admiration  and  doubtless  carries  conviction.  Racial  psy- 
chology prepares  us  for  an  extensive  use  of  solo  speeches  in  Greek  liter- 
ature.    This  tendency  of  the  race  is  definitely  limited  in  fifth-century 

1  Euanthius  De  fabula  iii.  1  (Wessner,  I,  IS);  for  further  details  cf.  Conrad, 
op.  cit.,  8  fF.,  and  footnotes. 

-For  brevity,  following  Leo,  I  use  "monologue"  to  cover  solo  speech  and  solo 
song;   nor  do  I  always  differentiate  soliloquy  in  the  narrow  sense. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


118 


drama  by  the  presence  of  a  chorus.  Only  before  the  entrance  of  the 
chorus  is  genuine  solo  speech  available.  To  this  limitation  set  by 
a  chorus  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  in  the  main  submit.  Eurii)ides, 
however,  strains  against  the  barrier  of  the  chorus.  His  interest  in 
solo  speech  led  to  a  steady  development  toward  a  detachable  prologue 
in  the  only  part  of  the  play  in  which  he  was  free  from  the  handicap 
of  a  chorus.  Within  the  play,  between  the  entrance  and  the  exit 
songs  of  the  chorus,  a  similar  progress  appears  toward  the  increasing 
use  of  quasi-monologues — the  prayer  monologue,  the  address  to  the 
elements  and  inanimate  surroundings  that  gradually  reverts  to 
actors  or  chorus,  and  pathetic  speech  that  disregards  the  presence  of 
chorus  and  actors;  rarely  too  he  removes  the  barrier  to  solo  speech 
and,  withdrawing  the  chorus,  as,  for  exainplc,  in  the  Helena,  finds 
expression  in  more  nearly  genuine  solo  speech.  The  quasi- 
monologues  in  the  presence  of  the  chorus  Leo  finds  most  frequently 
just  after  a  choral  song  and  at  the  beginning  of  a  meros;  in  a  relatively 
few  cases  they  appear  just  before  a  choral  song  and  at  the  end  of  a 
meros.  The  goal  toward  which  Euripides  was  tending,  hampered 
by  the  chorus,  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  Helena,  a  play  which  in  so 
many  other  features  of  form  and  content  anticipates  later  comedy. 
In  this  play  Euripides  reveals  what  he  would  have  done  without  a 
chorus;  here  the  mere,  or  acts,  of  the  drama  are  bracketed  between 
monologues  with  remarkable  regularity.  The  immediate  issues  of 
this  technique  Leo  sees  in  Roman  comedy.  The  Euripidean  prologue 
is  firmly  estal:)lished  in  many  plays  of  Plautus.  The  monologue,  now 
that  there  is  no  chorus,  is  freely  extended  within  the  plays  of  Plautus 
and  Terence,  and  it  brackets  with  some  regularity  in  many  plaA's 
those  units  of  action  which  Leo  discriminates  as  mere} 

My  objection  to  Leo's  inferences  from  the  facts  is  that  a  sig- 
nificance is  attached  to  many  phenomena  which  they  will  not  bear. 
So  far  as  the  position  of  the  monologue  is  concerned,  it  is  clear  that 
(apart  from  *' asides,"  with  which  Leo  is  not  primarily'  occupied)  the 
monologue  as  a  solo  speech  must  appear  at  the  beginning  or  at  the 
end  of  units  of  the  action ;  at  these  points,  only,  the  stage  is  cleared  of 
other  characters,  and  solo  speech  is  possible;  under  any  other  con- 
ditions a  solo  speech  nuist  be  delivered  over  the  heads  of  other  actors 

1  For  a  brief  resume  of  his  argument  cf.  Dcr  Muiioluu,  53. 


119 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


or  the  chorus.     In  Euripidean  tragedy  the  chorus  is  usually  present, 
and  the  dramatist  can  best  introduce  his  surrogates  of  the  monologue 
only  when  the  scene  of  action  is  relatively  clear,  that  is,  just  before  or 
after  a  choral  songJ     In  non-choral  drama  a  vast  majority  of  mono- 
logues must  appear  just  before  the  arrival  or  after  the  departure  of 
other  characters.     In  brief,  in  each  type  of  drama  the  position  of  the 
monologues   or   quasi-monologues   is   largely   inevitable,   and   it  is 
accordingly  unsafe  to  infer  from  the  position  of  solo  speeches  that 
one  type  of  drama  has  influenced  the  other  type.     The  most  that 
may  be  said  is  that  Euripidean  tragedy  (or  later  Euripidean  tragedy) 
and  New  comedy  (at  least  Philemon  and  possibly  Diphilus,  according 
to  Leo)  prefer  to  begin  new  phases  of  the  action  with  solo  speech 
rather  than  with   dialogue  and  much  less  regularly  to  end  such 
chapters  of  the  action  similarlv. 

Now  this  fact,  just  stated,  may  be  significant  and  may  repay 
careful  study,  but  so  far  as  Leo's  main  thesis  is  concerned,  viz.,  that 
the  quasi-monologues  in  Euripides,  limited  in  quantity  and  variety, 
are  opening  the  way  toward  the  vast  number  of  monologues  in 
comedy,  most  of  which  are  entirely  different  in  content  from  their 
supposed  Euripidean  forbears,  and  further,  that  a  bracketing  of 
acts  in  New  comedy  results  from  P^uripidean  practice  in  this  regard, 
we  nmst  observe,  not  only  that  the  position  of  the  monologue  is  an 
unsafe  criterion  and  that  the  qualitative  and  quantitative  differences 
between  the  two  types  are  remarkable,  but  that  the  regularity  of  act 
structure  posited  by  Leo  for  New  comedy  is  not  established  by  the 
evidence. 

Leo's  statements  of  fact  are  full  and  frank,  but  naturally  he  does 
not  throw  into  bold  rehef  the  obstacles  to  his  theory.  With  some 
measure  of  success  he  finds  in  the  Latin  plays  (only  three)  adapted 
from  originals  by  Philemon  the  bracketing  of  mere  by  monologues.^ 
Of  Menander's  technique  he  can  get  no  clear  idea  because,  as  he 
asserts,  so  many  of  Menander's  originals  are  contann'nated  in  the 
Roman  copies-^;  and  in  trying  to  account  for  contradictory  conditions 
within  the  group  of  contaminated  plays  Leo  displays  an  almost 

1  These  somewhat  obvious  facts  are  sensibly  stated  by  Legrand,  Daos,  490. 

2  Der  Monolog,  49-53. 

3  Ihid.,  55  ff. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


120 


acrobatic  versatility.'  Nor  is  Diphilus'  practice  easily  determined 
from  the  two  Latin  plays,  one  of  which  is  contaminated,  that  come 
from  his  hand.  Of  ten  plays  not  traceable  to  any  of  these  three 
playwrights  Leo  finds  his  norm  of  act  structure  fairly  well  established 
in  all  but  three,  the  Epidicus,  the  Curculio,  and  the  Asinaria.^  Even 
this  statement  of  Leo's  makes  a  rather  weak  case  for  any  dominant 
Euripidean  influence.  Without  stressing  statistics^  one  may  fairly 
describe  the  situation  in  the  following  terms:  Not-a^ngle  Latin  play  & 
has  all  its  acts  bracketed  by  monologues;  ten  plays,  only  two  of  which 
are  contaniinated,  have  absolutely  no  acts  bracketed  by  monologues; 
eight  plays  alone  contribute  the  slightest  support  to  Leo's  theory,  so 
far  as  they  have  a  reasonable  percentage  of  acts  bracketed  by  mono- 
logues (and  to  be  quite  fair  I  have  called  a  little  less  or  more  than  half 
a  reasonable  percentage);  the  other  eight  plays  lie  between  the  two 
extremes.  If  Leo  contends  that  it  is  not  fair  to  rest  his  case  on 
bracketing,  but  that  we  should  consider,  apart  from  the  bracketing, 
the  proportion  of  acts  that  either  begin  or  end  with  monologues,  the 
figures  are  these:  There  are  130  opportunities  to  begin  acts  with 
monologues,  of  which  the  Latin  plays  accept  78;  there  are  104** 
opportunities  to  end  acts  with  monologues,  of  which  31  are  accepted. 
In  other  words,  more  than  half  the  acts  begin  with  monologues, 
and  less  than  a  third  end  with  monologues.  Or  finally,  not  to  neglect 
any  angle,   two-thirds  of  all  the  entrance  monologues  of  Roman 

1  Thus,  for  example,  the  Casina,  from  the  Greek  of  Diphilus,  does  not  accord  with 
Leo's  expectation  of  acts  bracketed  by  monologues;  the  Rudens,  from  the  same  CJreek 
author,  does  accord;  Leo  {ibid.,  54)  is  confirmed  in  his  view  that  the  Casina  is  contami- 
nated, and  he  sees  in  that  plaj-  Plautine  techniciuo.  The  Andria,  though  rich  in  mono- 
logues, has  no  bracketing  of  acts;  Leo  (ibid.,  57)  remarks  that  Menander's  composition 
has  disappeared  in  the  process  of  contamination,  and  that  Terence's  technique  is  that 
of  the  Casina.  The  Stichus,  Poenulus,  Pseudohis,  and  Miles  gloriosus,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  fairly  regular  in  the  bracketing  of  acts;  Leo  concludes  (ibid.,  50,  60-61) 
that  Plautus  has  observed  and  followed  the  technique  of  his  Greek  originals!  Obvi- 
ously, if  one  accepts  Leo's  theory  of  contamination  and  of  the  monologue,  these  are 
the  only  possible  conclusions,  but  does  such  versatility  in  meeting  contradictory 
conditions  in  supposedly  contaminated  plays  stimulate  confidence  in  theories  either  of 
contamination  or  of  the  monologue  ? 

2  Ibid.,  59  ff. 

'  The  figures  that  follow  are  based  on  Leo's  own  interpretations,  though  he 
furnishes  no  statistics. 

*  The  difference  between  L30  and  104  is  due  to  the  fact  that,  donventionally,  the 
last  act  of  a  Roman  play  usually  ends  with  dialogue  in  trochaic  septenarii,  so  that  a 
monologue  at  the  end  of  the  play  and  of  the  last  act  is  practically  impossible. 


119 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


r 


or  the  chorus.  In  Euripidean  tragedy  the  chorus  is  usually  present, 
and  the  dramatist  can  best  introduce  his  surrogates  of  the  monologue 
onlv  when  the  scene  of  action  is  relatively  clear,  that  is,  just  before  or 
after  a  choral  song.^  In  non-choral  drama  a  vast  majority  of  mono- 
logues must  appear  just  before  the  arrival  or  after  the  departure  of 
other  characters.  In  brief,  in  each  type  of  drama  the  position  of  the 
monologues  or  quasi-monologues  is  largely  inevitable,  and  it  is 
accordingly  unsafe  t6  infer  from  the  position  of  solo  speeches  that 
one  type  of  drama  has  influenced  the  other  type.  The  most  that 
may  be  said  is  that  Euripidean  tragedy  (or  later  Euripidean  tragedy) 
and  New  comedy  (at  least  Philemon  and  possibly  Diphilus,  according 
to  Leo)  prefer  to  begin  new  phases  of  the  action  with  solo  speech 
rather  than  with  dialogue  and  much  less  regularly  to  end  such 
chapters  of  the  action  similarly. 

Now  this  fact,  just  stated,  may  be  significant  and  may  repay 
careful  study,  but  so  far  as  Leo's  main  thesis  is  concerned,  viz.,  that 
the  quasi-monologues  in  Euripides,  limited  in  quantity  and  variety, 
are  opening  the  way  toward  the  vast  number  of  monologues  in 
comedy,  most  of  which  are  entirely  different  in  content  from  their 
supposed  Euripidean  forbears,  and  further,  that  a  bracketing  of 
acts  in  New  comedy  results  from  Euripidean  practice  in  this  regard, 
we  nmst  observe,  not  only  that  the  position  of  the  monologue  is  an 
unsafe  criterion  and  that  the  qualitative  and  quantitative  differences 
between  the  two  types  are  remarkable,  but  that  the  regularity  of  act 
structure  posited  by  Leo  for  New  comedy  is  not  established  by  the 

evidence. 

Leo's  statements  of  fact  are  full  and  frank,  but  naturally  he  does 
not  throw  into  bold  reUef  the  obstacles  to  his  theory.  With  some 
measure  of  success  he  finds  in  the  Latin  plays  (only  three)  adapted 
from  originals  by  Philemon  the  bracketing  of  mere  by  monologues.^ 
Of  Menander's  technique  he  can  get  no  clear  idea  because,  as  he 
asserts,  so  many  of  Menander's  originals  are  contaminated  in  the 
Roman  copies^  and  in  trying  to  account  for  contradictory  conditions 
within  the  group  of  contaminated  plays  Leo  displays  an  almost 

1  These  somewhat  obvious  facts  are  sensibly  stated  by  Legrand,  Daos,  490. 
»  Der  Monolog,  49-53. 
a  Ibid.,  55  ff. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


120 


V 


acrobatic  versatility.^  Nor  is  Diphilus'  practice  easily  determined 
from  the  two  Latin  plaj^s,  one  of  which  is  contaminated,  that  come 
from  his  hand.  Of  ten  plays  not  traceable  to  any  of  these  three 
playwrights  Leo  finds  his  norm  of  act  structure  fairly  well  established 
in  all  but  three,  the  Epidicus,  the  Curculio,  and  the  Asinaria}  Even 
this  statement  of  Leo's  makes  a  rather  weak  case  for  any  dominant 
Euripidean  influence.  Without  stressing  statistics^  one  may  fairly 
describe  the  situation  in  the  following  terms:  No^-^singlc  Lartin  play  B^l*,  A- 
has  all  its  acts  bracketed  by  monologues;  ten  plays,  only  two  of  which  7/^^^<u*>tg^^<a 
are  contaminated,  have  absolutely  no  acts  bracketed  by  monologues; 
eight  plays  alone  contribute  the  slightest  support  to  Leo's  theory,  so 
far  as  they  have  a  reasonable  percentage  of  acts  bracketed  by  mono- 
logues (and  to  be  quite  fair  I  have  called  a  little  less  or  more  than  half 
a  reasonable  percentage) ;  the  other  eight  plaj^s  lie  between  the  two 
extremes.  If  Leo  contends  that  it  is  not  fair  to  rest  his  case  on 
bracketing,  but  that  we  should  consider,  apart  from  the  bracketing, 
the  proportion  of  acts  that  either  begin  or  end  with  monologues,  the 
figures  are  these:  There  are  130  opportunities  to  begin  acts  with 
monologues,  of  which  the  Latin  plays  accept  78;  there  are  104'* 
opportunities  to  end  acts  with  monologues,  of  which  31  are  accepted. 
In  other  words,  more  than  half  the  acts  begin  with  monologues, 
and  less  than  a  third  end  with  monologues.  Or  finally,  not  to  neglect 
any  angle,  two-thirds  of  all  the  entrance  monologues  of  Roman 

1  Thus,  for  example,  the  Casina,  from  the  Greek  of  Diphilus,  does  not  accord  with 
Leo's  expectation  of  acts  bracketed  by  monologues;  the  Rudens,  from  the  same  Greek 
author,  does  accord;  Leo  (ibid.,  54)  is  confirmed  in  his  view  that  the  Casina  is  contami- 
nated, and  he  sees  in  that  play  Plautine  technique.  The  Andria,  though  rich  in  mono- 
logues, has  no  bracketing  of  acts;  Leo  (ibid.,  57)  remarks  that  Menander's  composition 
has  disappeared  in  the  process  of  contamination,  and  that  Terence's  technique  is  that 
of  the  Casina.  The  Stichus,  Poenulus,  Pseudolus,  and  Miles  gloriosus,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  fairly  regular  in  the  bracketing  of  acts;  Leo  concludes  (ibid.,  56,  60-61) 
that  Plautus  has  observed  and  followed  the  technique  of  his  Greek  originals!  Obvi- 
ously, if  one  accepts  Leo's  theory  of  contamination  and  of  the  monologue,  these  are 

the  only  possible  conclusions,   but  does  such  versatility  in  meeting  contradictory  i 

conditions  in  supposedly  contaminated  plays  stimulate  confidence  in  theories  either  of 
contamination  or  of  the  monologue  ? 

2  Ibid.,  59  ff. 
'  The  figures  that  follow  are  based  on   Leo's  own  interpretations,   though   he 

furnishes  no  statistics. 

*The  difiference  between  130  and  104  is  due  to  the  fact  that,  conventionally,  the 
last  act  of  a  Roman  play  usually  ends  with  dialogue  in  trochaic  septenarii,  so  that  a 
monologue  at  the  end  of  the  play  and  of  the  last  act  is  practically  impossible. 


121 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


comedy  (not  including  the  Zutrittsmonolog)  stand  at  the  beginning 
of  acts;  slightly  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  exit  monologues  stand  at 
the  end  of  acts.  In  my  opinion  there  are  hardly  more  than  two 
significant  facts  in  the  situation :  first,  as  we  should  expect,  mono- 
logues stand  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  smaller  or  larger  units  of 
action,  and  in  so  doing  must  appear  often  at  the  beginning  or  end  of 
Leo's  acts;  secondly,  there  is  a  notable  predominance  of  entrance 
monologues,  indicating  a  distinct  preference  for  solo  speech  or  song 
over  dialogue  in  the  technique  of  entrance;  if  one  includes  the 
Zutrittsmonolog  and  Eintrittsmonolog  under  the  general  term  of 
entrance  monologue,  60  per  cent  of  the  monologues  of  Roman  comedy 
are  entrance  speeches,  20  per  cent  are  exit  monologues,  and  20  per 
cent  are  link  monologues. 

It  is,  however,  more  illuminating  to  observe  the  variations  in 
practice  in  individual  plays.     For  here  we  see,  what  I  am  most  eager 
to  establish  in  opposition  to  current  opinion,  the  absolute  negation 
of  any  uniform  procedure,  and  the  consequent  weakness  of  a  view 
that  Euripidean  tragedy  exerted  a  determining  influence  upon  the 
form  of  comedy.     Leo  himself,  on  coming  to  the  two  Latin  plays 
from  the  hand  of  Apollodorus,  the  Phormio  and  Hecyra,  immediately 
recognizes   a   novel   and   individual   technique;     the   Phormio,   for 
example,  has  twelve  monologues  and  five  acts;   but  only  one  of  the 
dozen  solo  speeches  stands  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  an  act,  and 
two-thirds  of  them  are  link  monologues.     The  Captivi,  he  has  to 
admit,  only  seemingly  supports  his  theory;  for  two  of  its  monologues 
are  interlude  scenes,  and  as  such  reveal  another  novel  type  of  structure 
only   partially   paralleled   by  the  choragus   scene   of   the   Curculio; 
that  is,  here  clearly  the  monologue  does  not  follow  a  vacant  stage  but 
occupies  a  stage  which  would  otherwise  be  vacant ;  in  other  words,  it 
performs  one  of  the  main  functions  of  a  chorus.     Beyond  these  clear 
marks  of  variety  and  individuality  lie  equally  clear  evidences  of 
divergence  from  any  norm  in  other  plays.     What  could  be  more 
suggestive  than  the  contrast  between  the  Aulularia  and  the  Asinaria  f 
The  former  is  supposed  by  Leo  to  be  Menandrian  and  is  innocent  of 
contamination;   it  has  twenty-two  monologues,  an  unusually  large 
number,  and  four  acts;  yet  of  this  large  number  of  solo  speeches  only 
one  stands  at  the  beginning  of  an  act,  three  at  the  ends  of  acts,  and 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


122 


no  act  is  bracketed;  and  all  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  are 
nine  entrance  and  seven  exit  speeches  out  of  the  twenty-two.     On  the 
other  hand,  observe  the  Asinaria,  from  the  Greek  of  an  obscure  poet, 
Demophilus;   it  has  only  six  monologues,  the  smallest  number  of  all 
the  plays,  and  all  six  are  used  in  the  first  half  of  the  play,  one  at  the 
beginning,   two  at  the  ends  of  acts.     Possibly  the  plots  of  these 
two  plays  are  pecuhar  and  the  structure  correspondingly  peculiar; 
but  are  we  likely  to  appreciate  properly  the  various  theories  of  act 
division,  of  monologue,  of  Euripidean  influence,  until  we  consider 
how  the  plot  and  various  other  factors  affect  structure  ?    Between 
the  two  extremes  presented  by  these  two  plays  the  other  comedies 
offer  other  interesting  vagaries,  into  which  I  need  not  go  at  present. 
In  this  discussion  of  the  monologue  I  have  necessarily  accepted, 
for  descriptive  and  argumentative  purposes,  the  theory  of  vacant 
stages  and  of  act  division,  although  in  the  previous  sections  of  the 
paper  I  have  attacked  the  validity  of  the  act  theory,  and  of  the 
vacant  stage  in  Roman  comedy  as  a  criterion  of  division  into  acts. 
Perhaps  I  should  state  now  my  general  attitude  toward  Leo's  theories 
of  the  vacant  stage,  monologue,  and  act  division.     The  broad  impli- 
cation in  his  discussion  seems  to  me  to  be  that  a  rather  regular 
sequence  of  exit  monologue,  choral  song,  entrance  monologue  in 
choral  drama  (and  specially  in  Euripides)  results  in  Roman  comedy 
in  a  fairly  uniform  sequence  of  exit  monologue,  vacant  stage,  entrance 
monologue.^     Now  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  the  role  of 
the  Menandrian  /co/nos-chorus  makes  it  likely  that  a  Roman  poet, 
finding  such  a  chorus  in  his  Greek  original,  would  substitute  for  it  a 
vacant  stage,  and  monologues  might  often  appear  on  either  side  of  the 
fcomos-chorus  and  of  the  subsequent  vacant  stage.     What  I  doubt  is 
whether  this  Menandrian  technique  was  consistently  employed  by 
Menander  or  by  other  Hellenistic  poets,  and  whether  Euripidean 
influence  is  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with  when  such  technique  appears. 

1  This  statement  is  not  quite  fair  to  Leo.  Exit  monologues  in  Euripides  are 
relatively  few  in  number,  and  Leo  would  probably  stress  the  fact  that  the  sequence  of 
choral  song  and  entrance  monologue  in  choral  drama  is  replaced  by  the  sequence  of 
vacant  stage  and  entrance  monologue  in  Roman  comedy.  It  is  true  that  entrance 
monologue  in  Roman  comedy  is  predominant,  but  from  my  standpoint  the  vacant 
stage  before  it  is  mere  assumption  in  most  cases.  The  sequence  of  exit  monologue, 
vacant  stage,  and  entrance  monologue  in  Roman  comedy  occurs  about  35  times  out 
of  a  possible  104;   eight  plays  have  no  examples  of  this  sequence. 


123 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


In  my  own  mind  I  leave  room  for  a  further  possibility  that,  much 
oftener  than  Leo  admits  (in  the  Captivi  and  Curculio),  a  monologue 
is  itself  a  substitute  for  the  chorus  of  choral  drama,  that  it  bridges 
gaps  rather  than  follows  a  gap,  that  it  promotes  continuity  of  action 
even  in  the  Greek  original,  as  it  does  in  my  view,  for  example,  in  the 
Persa  as  a  Roman  production.^     From  this  standpoint  possible  vacant 
stages  in  Roman  comedy  are  not  very  regularly  substantial  pauses, 
and  monologues  are  sometimes  surrogates  of  the  vacant  stage  as  well 
as  of  the  chorus.  ■  So  far  as  Euripidean  influence  is  concerned  I  see 
nothing  in  the  evidence  that  conflicts  with  the  view  that,  given  racial 
psychology  which  prompts  soUloquy,  and  granting  the  dramatic 
convenience  of  the  monologue  as  an  artifice  in  facilitating  structure,^ 
the  monologue  is  bound  to  assert  itself  in  comedy,  without  any 
Euripidean  influence,  as  soon  as  the  chorus  is  removed;   this  begins 
to  appear  at  once  in  the  Ecclesiazusae  and  Pliitus,  and  if  the  Helena 
also  illustrates  it  I  see  only  the  parallel  development  which  I  should 
expect  in  the  two  dramatic  types.^ 

Euripidean  influence  is  certainly  not  manifest  in  the  spirit  and 
general  content  of  the  comic  monologue,  and  if  its  formal  features 
are  due  to  the  tragic  poet  the  mold  has  been  usually  filled  with  a 
content  that  comes  either  from  the  resources  of  Old  comedy  or  from 
the  immediate  dramatic  necessities  of  the  New  comedy  of  intrigue. 
The  Euripidean  monologue  is  limited  in  the  main  to  prayers  and 

1  Leo  limits  the  technique  to  the  passages  referred  to  above,  p.  116,  n.  3.  Other 
passages  which  are  chorartig  {Der  Monolog,  68,  PL  Forsch\  240,  n.  1)  in  his  opinion 
are  of  a  different  sort,  being  mainly  Lauscherscenen. 

2  Cf.  Arnold,  The  Soliloquies  of  Shakespeare  (New  York,  1911),  81,  who  indulges  in 
the  paradox  that  the  structural  monologues  opening,  closing,  and  linking  chapters 
of  action  are  artificial  speeches  used  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  artifice.  Similarly 
Roessler,  The  Soliloquy  in  German  Drama  (New  York,  1915),  17.  regards  the  structural 
monologue  as  a  lubricant  in  the  wheelwork  of  the  drama. 

3  The  point  will  be  raised  that  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  do  not  use  the  Euripidean 
surrocrates  of  the  monologue.  In  this,  as  in  many  other  respects.  Euripides  and 
comedy  are  more  or  less  alike,  while  the  older  tragedians  differ.  Modern  critics 
hastily  use  this  situation  to  establish  the  influence  of  Euripides  upon  comedy.  But 
who  knows,  if  there  is  anv  influence  exerted  at  all,  whether  or  not  comedy  as  early  as 
Epicharmus  or  as  late  as  Aristophanes  influenced  Euripides  ?  Euripides  and  Old 
comedy  have  much  in  common:  informality,  direct  appeal  to  the  people,  colloquial 
style,  indifference  to  sophisticated  art;  Aristophanes  criticizes  Euripides  because  these 
and  other  features  are  out  of  place  in  tragedy;  it  would  only  be  a  pleasant  irony  if  the 
tragic  poet,  from  unconscious  sympathy  or  conscious  imitation,  often  approximated 
the  style  of  comedy. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


124 


addresses  to  inanimate  surroundings  and  to  occasional  pathetic 
speeches  over  the  heads  of  actors  and  chorus.  Of  the  huge  number 
of  comic  monologues  no  general  description  is  possible,  but  the 
commonest  types  are  narrative  monologues  outlining  past,  present, 
and  future  action,  and  solo  speeches  on  general  aspects  of  social  life.^ 
The  former  result  largely  from  the  dramatist's  obligation  to  cover 
offstage  action  or  to  make  his  plot  intelligible;  the  latter,  though 
occasionally  touching  Euripidean  themes,^  are  quite  as  much  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Aristophanic  parabasis.  Botli  types,  and  monologues  in 
general  in  comedy,  are  very  often  explicit  or  imphcit  addresses  to  the 
audience^  and  as  such  reflect  the  informality  of  Old  comedy;  the 
speeches  to  the  chorus  and  to  the  audience  in  Aristophanes  supply  all 
the  needed  literary  background  for  the  manner  of  delivery  and  for 
some  of  the  material  of  the  comic  monologue  of  the  next  centuries.^ 


VIII 

In  one  type  of  expository  monologue,  however,  modern  critics 
seem  to  have  unassailable  evidence  of  the  closest  interrelation  between 
Hellenistic  comedy  and  Euripides.  The  Plautine  prologue  that  nar- 
rates the  plot  in  a  detachable  speech  to  the  audience  delivered  by  a 
divinity,  or  a  character  in  the  play,  or  a  ''prologus,"  is  generally 
admitted  to  reproduce  all  the  essential  features  of  the  Euripidean 
prologue.  This  evidence  I  have  no  desire  to  minimize,  but  I  may 
properly  indicate  by  a  few  brief  comments  that  the  antecedents  of 
the  Plautine  prologue  are  mixed  rather  than  simple,  as  is  so  often 
the  case  with  phenomena  in  which  modern  criticism  stresses  heav- 
ily the  Euripidean  features. 

The  prologue  is  only  one  form  of  exposition,  or  only  part  of  the 
exposition.  At  the  outset  I  find  it  significant  that  another  type  of 
exposition,  in  which  a  dialogue  between  master  and  slave  opens  the 
play,  and  the  master  in  response  to  urgent  questions  discloses  facts 
of  interest  to  the  audience,  is  admitted  by  the  chief  essayist  on  the 

1  For  examples,  cf.  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  72,  nn.  13  and  14. 

2Cf.,  e.g.,  Leo,  PL  Forsch.'^,  119;  for  the  philosophizing  as  such  cf.  CP,  XIII 
(1918),  134-37. 

3  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  80;    Schaffner,  De  aversum  loquendi  ratione  (Giessen,  1911),  18. 
<  Leo,  Der  Monolog,  79  ff.,  Gcschichte  d.  rom.  Lit.,  I,  107,  109,  n.  1. 


125 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


prologues  of  Greek  comedy  not  only  to  have  distinctly  mixed  ante- 
cedents but  to  owe  its  origin  to  comedy  rather  than  to  tragedy;^  and 
this  too  in  spite  of  the  closest  resemblance  in  details  of  phraseology 
as  well  as  of  general  situation  between  such  dialogue  expositions  in 
the  Roman  plays  and  the  corresponding  expositions  of  Euripidean 
tragedy:  ''....  videntur  mihi  talia  initia  ut  Thesmophoriazusarum 
Pluti  Iphigeniae  Aul.  Pseudoli  Curculionis  primum  ficta  esse  a  poetis 
comicis,  inde  autem  manasse  et  per  tragoediam  et  per  mediam  novam- 
que  comoediam."2     Without  intending  at  all  to  subscribe  to  any 
theory  of  origins  in  this  matter ,3  I  quote  this  statement  of  Frantz 
simply  to  suggest  that  in  the  triangular  relation  which  is  often  ap- 
parent between  Aristophanes,  Euripides,  and  New  comedy  one  must 
be  open-minded  to  the  possibility  that  early  comedy  rather  than 
Euripides  is  the  initiating  force,  and  that  Euripidean  influence  is  only 
one  of  many  strands  in  the  complicated  phenomenon  of  later  comedy. 
It  is  this  same  triangular  relation  that  confronts  a  student  of  the 
prologue  as  a  detachable  speech  to  the  audience,  if  he  is  not  biased 
by  preconceptions  of  Euripides'  influence  upon  later  comedy.     A 
discriminating  critic  like  Leo^  may  successfully  trace  in  the  Euripidean 
prologues  a  development  from  a  speech  in  which  the  expositor  care- 
fully accounts  in  the  prologue  for  his  appearance,  justifies  the  solilo- 
quy form  of  his  address,  and  in  general  satisfies  all  the  demands  of  a 
modern  sophisticated  critic,  to  a  negligent  and  relatively  inartistic 
prologue   in  which   the  speaker   seems   to  be  almost   impersonal, 
disregards   motivation,    external   or   internal,  and   is  conscious  of 
the  audience,  though  he  does  not  directly  appeal  to  it.^     And  the 

1  Frant;?,  Dc  comoediac  All.  prologis  (1891),  21  ff.  He  is  quite  convinced,  however, 
that  the  prologue  as  a  detachable  expository  speech  is  thoroughly  Euripidean  (ibid., 
30  ff.,  40,45,  49). 

2  Ibid.,  28. 

3  In  this  small  matter  I  should  probably  not  espouse  any  theory  of  origins  or 
influence  but  content  myself  with  the  observation  that  comic  and  tragic  dramatists, 
facing  similar  problems  of  exposition,  solve  the  difhculties  in  similar  simple  ways.  The 
modern  playwright  who  opens  his  play  with  a  dialogue  between  the  butler  and  the  maid 
need  not  have  read  ancient  drama  or  contemporary  drama;  such  devices  are  quickly 
conventionalized,  of  course,  and  become  traditional,  but  they  are  weak  props  for  any 
thoroughgoing  theory  of  origins  or  influence. 

*  Der  Monolog,  14-26. 

5  Explicit  address  to  the  audience  in  tragedy  is  so  rare  that  Frantz  (op.  cit.,  50) 
properly  describes  it  as  a  descent  to  the  plane  of  comedy. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


126 


conclusion  is  that  in  this  final  type  of  Euripidean  prologue  "der 
^prologus'  der  spateren  Komodie  ist  .  .  .  .  potentiell  vorhanden."^ 
Over  against  this  fact  must  be  balanced  the  equally  significant  con- 
ditions in  Aristophanes'  Knights  and  Wasps  and  Peace  (cf.  Birds, 
30  ff.),  which  critics  cannot  refer  to  Euripidean  tragedy  at  all;  in 
these  plays  one  of  two  slaves,  after  some  preliminary  dialogue,  turns 
to  the  audience  and  in  frankly  informal  address  to  the  spectators 
expounds  the  theme  or  general  situation.^  Here  is  a  much  clearer 
background  for  the  inartistic  comic  prologue  of  later  times;  nor  can 
one  deny  that  the  interruption,  in  the  Plautine  prologues,  of  the 
exposition  of  the  plot  by  facetious  remarks  and  serious  reflections 
(as,  for  example,  in  the  Captivi)  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience  is 
quite  alien  to  Euripides  and  entirely  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  Old 
comedy.  It  is,  however,  quite  clear  that  the  monologue  form  of 
detachable  exposition  in  New  comedy  is  more  closely  allied  to 
Euripidean  technique  than,  for  example,  to  the  monologue  of  Dicae- 
opolis  at  the  beginning  of  the  Acharnians;  and  one  may  easily  see 
how  the  travestying  of  tragedies  would  have  brought  over  the 
Euripidean  monologue  into  Middle  comedy,  and  how  readily  the 
same  expository  form  would  have  been  retained  in  the  comedy  of 
manners.  At  the  same  time  one  must  admit  that  the  extreme 
informality,  the  frankness  of  direct  address  to  the  spectators,  the 
conscious  exposition  of  the  plot,  are  all  forestalled  in  Aristophanic 
comedy.  In  such  matters  Euripides  may  be  not  an  initiating  force 
but  a  complacent  victim  to  the  democratic  informality  of  early 
comedy. 

Not  only  as  relatively  inorganic  solo  speech  is  the  prologue  in 
Hellenistic  and  Roman  comedy  traced  to  Euripides,  but  in  the  choice 
of  persons  as  speakers  comedy  is  supposed  to  be  following  closely  the 
tragic  poet.     For  in  Euripides  the  prologues  are  delivered  by  char- 

•  1  Der  Monolog,  25. 
2  Leo,  of  course,  recognizes  the  contribution  of  Old  comedy  in  this  respect  (Der 
Monolog,  80),  but  his  general  appraisal  puts  all  the  emphasis  upon  the  Euripidean 
prologue.  Beyer,  De  scacnis  ....  quibus  ....  narrantiir,  non  aguntur  (Gottingen, 
1912),  49,  asserting  that  this  Aristophanic  form  of  exposition  is  primitive  and  was 
established  in  comedy  much  earlier,  strangely  argues  that  it  is  derived  from  tragedy. 
It  may  be  observed  that,  so  far  as  this  expository  address  to  the  audience  in  Aristopha- 
nes follows  preliminary  dialogue,  it  furnishes  a  better  background  for  the  intercalated 
prologue  of  Plautine  comedy  than,  I  think,  anything  that  Euripides  has  to  offer. 


127 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


aeters  in  the  play  or  by  divinities;    and  the  extant  prologues  of 
comedy  are  put  in  the  mouths  of  the  same  two  types  of  speakers; 
comedy,  to  be  sure,  has  added  to  the  Hst  the  impersonal  ^'prologus," 
whom  modern  critics  dismiss  as  a  natural  final  development  of  the 
inorganic  prologue.^     In  this  bit  of  cumulative  evidence,  however, 
there  is  a  deviation  from  complete  correspondence  that  might  prove 
significant  of  a  different  history  for  the  expository  prologue.     The 
divinities  who  deliver  the  Euripidean  prologues  are,  almost  without 
exception,  the  major  gods  and  goddesses  of  the  hierarchy.^    The 
divine  beings  who  serve  as  prologists  in  comedy  are  of  a  different 
and  lower  order.     It  is  at  least  incautious  to  speak  of  ''die  direkte 
Abk\mft-'3    (froi^   the   prologizing   divinities   in   tragedy)    of   such 
allegorical   figures  as   Aer,   Elenchos,   Agnoia,   AuxiHum,   Luxuria, 
Inopia,  Tuche,  and  Phobos,  and  of  minor  deities  like  Arcturus,  Heros, 
and  Lar  Familiaris.     The  consistency  of  allegorical  prologists  in 
comedv  is  striking.     One  may  argue,  of  course,  that  the  less  heroic 
material  of  New  comedy  naturally  make  unavailable  as  prologists 
such  divinities  as  Aphrodite,  Artemis,  Apollo,  and  the  like,  and  that 
allegorical  figures  are  a  natural  substitute  for  the  Euripidean  pro- 
logists.    On  the  other  hand,  there  seems  to  be  no  special  reason  why 
Venus  should  not  utter  the  prologue  of  many  a  comedy  in  which  the 
love  ston.'  is  prominent,  or  why  Neptune  as  well  as  Arcturus  might 
not  introduce  the  Rudens,  if  with  consequent  loss  of  the  charming 
detail  in  the  present  prologue;  but  this  does  not  happen,  so  far  as  we 
can  discover  from  extant  material.*     That  Kalligeneia,  who  seems 
to  have  spoken  an  expository  monologue  at  the  beginning  of  Aris- 
tophanes' second  Thesmophoriazusae,  or  Dorpia,  who  perhaps  simi- 
larly introduced  Philyllius'  Herakles,  is  a  perfect  background  for  the 
allegorical  prologists  of  later  comedy  is  not  quite  certain;    these 
deities  were  probably  personifications  of  festival  days,  and  as  such 
approximate   the  divine   prologists  of   New   comedy;    they   may, 
however,  have  had  active  roles  in  the  plays,  and  the  Herakles  may 

»  Leo,  PL  For8ch.\  224  ff. 

2  The  case  of  Thanatos  in  the  Alcestis  is  hardly  a  real  exception. 

'  Leo,  op.  cit.,  212. 

*  Dionysus  in  the  Strassburg  prologue  is  far  from  certain,  nor  are  Eros  and  Aphro- 
dite in  the  Ghoran  papyri  valid  exceptions.  For  other  possible  cases  of  comic  pro- 
logists cf.  Leo,  op  cit.,  212,  n.  4. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


128" 


have  been  a  mythological  travesty.  But  even  if  Old  comedy  had  no 
prologists  of  precisely  the  same  type  as  New  comedy,  it  should  be 
clear  that  the  allegorical  figures  of  Ploutos,  Opora,  Theoria,  Eirene, 
the  Logos  Dikaios  and  Logos  Adikos,  which  issue  naturally  from  the 
fantastic  plots  of  Aristophanic  comedy,  suggest  that  the  allegorical 
prologists  of  New  comedy,  as  allegorical  figures,  are  not  primarily 
Euripidean  at  all;*  nor  should  anybody  overlook  in  this  connection 
the  roles  of  Earth  and  Sea,  of  Logos  and  Logina,  in  Epicharmus. 
The  part  that  Sicilian-Attic  comedy  and  very  early  mythological 
travesty  of  epic  story  and  oral  legend  played  in  this  development 
both  of  allegorical  figures  and  of  the  prologue  is  unknown,  but  con- 
servative criticism  will  reckon  with  the  unknown,  at  least  so  far  as 
to  modify  hasty  conclusions  from  the  know^n.^ 

IX 

It  w^ould  strengthen  the  contention  of  modern  critics  appreciably 
if,  through  careful  analysis  of  the  structure  of  action  in  New  comedy 
and  of  the  mainsprings  of  action,  they  had  estabhshed  close  con- 
nections with  Euripidean  tragedy.  Legrand  in  his  Daos  (p.  383), 
having  asserted  that  the  rigorous  unity  of  later  comedy  is  due  to  the 
influence  of  tragedy,  remarks  that  he  w^ll,  in  the  course  of  subsequent 
chapters,  repeatedly  note  that  the  comedies  employed  the  same 
motives  or  adopted  the  same  general  arrangement  as  did  the  dramas 
of  Euripides;  yet  in  his  immediately  following  discussion  of  simple 
and  intricate  plots  and  of  ''les  ressorts  de  Taction"  there  is  not  a 
single  reference  to  any  Euripidean  parallels.  In  various  particu- 
larities of  dramatic  technique,  however,  Legrand  and  others  do  find 
further  evidence  of  Euripidean  influence.  Some  representative 
instances  of  such  discussions  I  must  briefly  consider. 

1  The  nearest  approach  to  such  figures  in  Euripides  is  in  the  prelude  to  the  second 
part  of  the  Hercules  furens,  in  which  Lussa,  conducted  by  Iris,  enters  the  palace  some-    | 
what  as  Inopia  is  escorted  by  Luxuria  to  the  house  of  the  hero  in  the  prologue  of  the   j 
Trinummus.     I  should  be  quite  willing  to  grant  that  Philemon  might  have  been 
influenced  by  Euripides  here,  without  admitting  that  the  isolated  instance  in  Euripides 
is  sufficient  to  explain  the  extensive  use  of  allegorical  prologists  in  comedy. 

2  It  is  pertinent  to  remark  that  the  call  for  applause  at  the  end  of  the  play  has  a 
background  in  Aristophanes;  cf.  Leo,  op.  cit.,  240  and  n.  3.  And  it  is  not  uninteresting 
to  observe  that  Leo  is  mistaken  (ibid.,  241)  in  thinking  that  the  quotation  of  a  similar 
tag  in  Suetonius  {Aug.  99)  is  from  Middle  or  New  comedy;  is  it  not  clearly  implied 
to  come  from  a  mime  ? 


129 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


-/ 


A  characteristic  of  most  of  these  studies  in  the  minutiae  of 
dramatic  technique  is  the  acceptance,  at  the  start,  of  the  Euripidean 
theory;  the  writers  then  proceed  to  find  cumulative  evidence  of  the 
dependence  of  comedy  upon  traged}"  in  whatever  detail  of  craftsman- 
ship they  choose  for  investigation.  Thus,  for  example,  Fraenkel 
opens  a  chapter  of  his  stud}'  with  the  statement:  ''id  effectum  est  ut 
hodie  paene  iam  pueris  decantatum  sit  ex  quinti  saeculi  tragoedia, 
Euripidea  imprimis,  in  mediam  novamque  comoediam  non  modo 


varia  fabularum   arguraenta  . 


sed   etiam   singulas   sententias 


.  .  .  .  defluxisse " ;^  and  Harms  begins  his  essay  on  motivation: 
''constat  novam  ....  comoediam  potius  tragoediae  Euripideae 
quam  veteris  comoediae  iorma^  atque  rationem  secutam  esse."^ 
Considering  the  vogue  of  the  theory  that  Euripides  is  "der  wahre 
Begriinder  der  neueren  attischen  Komodie,"  one  can  hardly  blame 
such  writers,  but  the  danger  in  starting  from  this  theory  as  a  demon- 
strated fact  is  obvious.  Nor  are  the  methods  employed  in  the 
course  of  investigation  as  sound  as  they  should  be.  Constantly  one 
finds  the  writers  of  dissertations  observing  that  A  resembles  B,  and 
that  therefore  B  is  derived  from  A;  that  both  A  and  B  may  be 
derived  from  X,  or  that  for  other  reasons  the  resemblance  of  A  to  B 
does  not  establish  any  causal  connection  between  the  two,  never 
enters  into  their  calculations.  In  general,  having  recognized  the 
possibility  of  Euripidean  influence,  they  never  stop  to  eliminate  all 
other  possibilities.  Practically  such  investigations  are  brought  to  a 
conclusion  at  the  point  where  fruitful  study  might  well  begin. 

I  can  easily  sympathize,  for  example,  with  anybody  who,  in 
reading  the  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  remarks^  that  "der  gastfreundliche 
Herr,  die  aufopferungswillige  Gattin,  der  treue,  etwas  beschrankte 
Diener,  der  bose,  senile  Alte"  can  easily  be  paralleled  from  Menander 
and  Plautus.  But  if  this  stereotyping  tendency  in  Euripides 
is  a  natural  issue  from  the  technique  of  the  Mdrchen,  and  if  in 

1  Fraenkel,  De  media  et  nova  comoedia  qu.  sel.  (Gottingen,  1912),  53. 

2  Harms,  De  introitu  personarum  in  Euripidis  et  novae  comoediae  fab.  (Gottingen, 
1914),  1. 

'  Howald,  Untersuch.  zur  Technik  der  euripid.  Trag.  (Tubingen,  1914),  19. 
Howald  does  not  use  the  resemblance  to  prove  any  interrelation,  and  I  quote  his  words 
only  to  illustrate  a  natural  and  current  impression  of  the  likeness  between  Euripides 
and  comedy  in  the  matter  of  characters. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


130 


Aristophanes  I  find  Socrates  approximating  a  typical  philosopher 
rather  than  the  real  Socrates,  and  if  Aristophanes  and  Doric  farce 
already  have  developed,  without  Euripidean  influence,  stereotyped 
professional  roles,  I  must  conclude  that  the  degree  of  Euripidean 
influence  upon  New  comedy  in  this  respect  is  difficult  to  determine; 
certainly  I  cannot  lay  much  weight  on  the  fact  that  Aristophanes  does 
not  stereotype  domestic  roles  as  long  as  he  has  little  occasion  to  use 
them.  And  I  must  remain  open-minded  to  the  possibility  that  the 
resemblance  of  Euripides  to  New  comedy  does  not  establish  any 
interdependence  of  the  one  and  the  other.  For  aught  I  know 
Sicilian-Attic  comedy  may  have  had  stereotyped  domestic  roles 
before  Euripides  wrote  tragedy.  I  am  not  denying  that  some  comic 
poets  learned  something  about  character  treatment  from  Euripides, 
directly  or  indirectly,  but  again  the  whole  problem  is  a  complex,  not 
a  simple,  one. 

The  so-called  unities  of  time  and  place  in  drama  have  been 
studied,  and  various  observations  have  been  made  regarding  the 
devices  used  by  dramatists  to  preserve  these  unities.  The  recent 
history  of  such  studies  is  significant.  Felsch^  records  the  artifices 
used  by  Greek  tragedians.  Polczyk^  follows  with  a  study  of  the 
same  problems  in  New  comedy  and  notes  in  connection  with  almost 
every  artifice  that  Felsch  has  found  the  same  device  in  Greek  tragedy; 
Polcyzk  then  concludes  that  in  these  respects  New  comedy  is  depend- 
ent upon  tragedy.  Almost  immediately,  however,  Todd,  in  studying 
the  unity  of  time  in  Aristophanes,  avows  that  Old  comedy  uses  the 
same  devices  as  New  comedy,  a  fact  which  Polcyzk  had  denied.' 
If  Todd  is  right  we  are  confronted  with  a  dilemma:  Did  Euripides 
teach  Aristophanes  these  artifices  ?  Or  did  Aristophanes,  Euripides, 
and  poets  of  the  New  comedy,  facing  the  same  problem,  solve  it  in 
the  same  way  independently  of  one  another  ? 

That  the  second  of  these  two  alternatives  must  be  chosen  seems 
to  me  likely  when  we  are  concerned  with  particularities  of  technique 
that  are  clearly  due  to  conditions  of  the  Greek  theater,  in  which 
Euripides  and  poets  of  the  Old  and  the  New  comedy  produced  their 

^Bresl.  Philol.  AbhandL,  IX  (1907),  Heft  4. 

'  Polczyk,  De  unitatibus  et  loci  et  temporis  in  nov.  com.  obs.  (Breslau,  1909). 

'Todd,  Harv.  Stud.  Class.  Phil.,  XXIV  (1915),  50  flf. 


131 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


plays.  A  rigid  scenic  background  and  an  essentially  outdoor  setting 
were  conditions  that  faced  Euripides  and  the  comic  poets;  resem- 
blances between  tragedy  and  comedy,  therefore,  in  artifices  which 
manifestly  result  from  a  common  interest  in  overcoming  these  and 
similar  difficulties  cannot  be  used  to  establish  the  dependence  of 
comedy  upon  tragedy,  especially  when  the  devices  are  of  a  simple  and 
obvious  nature.  So  in  the  mass  of  conventions  relating  to  the  mise 
en  scene  which  Legrand  accumulates  on  pages  428-63  of  his  Daos, 
nobody  should  look  for  any  evidence  of  the  interrelation  of  the  two 
literary  types ;  nor  does  Legrand  venture  beyond  the  wise  statement 
(p.  461)  that  the  germs  of  these  conventions  are  found  both  in 
Aristophanes  and  in  Euripides.  Other  critics  rashly  jump  to  con- 
clusions; even  if  Polczyk  is  right  in  denying  that  Aristophanes 
preserves  unity  of  place  by  the  same  devices  as  Euripides  and  New 
comed}^  it  is  hazardous  for  him  to  argue  from  the  resemblance  in  this 
respect  between  the  tragic  poet  and  later  comic  poets  that  New 
comedy  took  over  these  conventions  from  tragedy. 

It  is  of  course  natural,  when  Aristophanes  differs  in  his  procedure, 
and  Euripides  and  New  comedy  agree,  to  infer  a  close  historical 
relation  between  tragedy  and  New  comedy.  Even  this  inference  is 
unsafe  if,  as  is  the  case,  tragedy  and  later  comedy  have  in  common 
but  quite  independently  of  each  other  domestic  plots  and  broadly 
emotional  incidents  which  Aristophanes  does  not  employ.  Thus, 
for  example,  Harms^  in  his  study  of  motivation  observes  that  the 
entrance  of  characters  upon  the  stage  in  Euripides  and  in  New  comedy 
is  often  motivated  *'  aut  dolore  aut  inquiete  animi  aut  consideratione," 
whereas  in  Aristophanes  such  emotional  and  mental  conditions  are 
not  generally  employed  to  make  the  entrance  of  characters  natural 
and  inevitable;  for  this  and  other  reasons  Harms  concludes  that 
New  comedy  takes  over  from  Euripides  its  devices  for  motivating 
entrance.  But  when  such  resemblances  are  pointed  out  one  should 
first  consider  whether  the  common  element  may  not  be  accounted 
for  without  any  dependence  of  one  type  upon  the  other.  Aris- 
tophanic  comedy,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  does  not  stress  the 
emotional  side  of  life;  Euripides  and  New  comedy,  on  the  contrary, 
are  deaUng  with  the  emotional  experiences  of  everyday  people  and 

^  Op.  cit.,  64. 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


132 


will  naturally  motivate  action  by  elementary  emotions  to  a  very 
large  degree  without  necessarily  being  interdependent  in  that  respect. 
Harms,  and  others  in  similar  studies,  apparently  strengthen  their 
arguments  by  pointing  out  corroborating  resemblances  in  details  of 
phraseology  and  style.  This  procedure  is  in  itself  quite  legitimate, 
but  again  the  critics  are  hasty  in  their  inferences.  In  the  first  place, 
some  stylistic  features  which  Euripides  cultivates  became  common 
property  of  writers  in  the  Hellenistic  period  and  may  appear  in  New 
comedy  without  any  direct  influence  of  the  tragic  poet.  Again 
many  details  of  form  and  turns  of  phrase  may  recur  in  both  types  of 
literature,  because  they  are  taken  by  each  type,  independently  of  the 
other,  from  the  common  fund  of  colloquial  expression  which 
Euripides,  somewhat  abnormally,  and  comedy,  quite  naturally, 
dehght  to  use,  or  from  some  other  common  source.  When  Harms,^ 
for  example,  discovers  that  the  Phrygian  in  Orestes  1375  justifies  his 
entrance  by  revealing  fear  in  the  words,  "Woe's  me;  whither  shall 
I  flee?"  and  that  Bromia  in  the  Amphitruo  similarly  exclaims,  "me 
miseram,  quid  agam  nescio?"  and  Myrrhina  in  the  Hecyra,  ''peril, 
quid  agam?  quo  me  vortam?"  the  resemblance  in  these  emotional 
commonplaces  between  Euripides  and  New  comedy  moves  me  about 
as  much  as  would  the  discovery  that  Harms  and  I  had  made  the  same 
blunder;  without  imitating  him  I  am  quite  capable  of  it.  Each  of 
these  details  is  trivial  in  itself,  but  the  discussion  of  them  so  pervades 
the  treatment  of  comedy  in  these  days  that  I  may  be  allowed  another 
concrete  example.  FraenkeP  discovers  the  following  feature  in  both 
Euripidean  tragedy  and  later  comedy:  Two  interlocutors  in  a 
dialogue  scene  are  engaged  in  expounding  a  situation  or  facts;  one 
of  them.  A,  is  telling  the  story,  but  instead  of  setting  it  forth  in  an 
unbroken  sequence  he  interrupts  himself  and  turns  to  the  other 
interlocutor,  B,  and  says,  ''Do  you  know  so-and-so?"  B  answers, 
*'0f  course  I  do,"  and  there  follows  a  brief  conversation  on  this  line, 
after  which  A  resumes  his  narrative.  Now  this  simple  bit  of  dialogue 
technique  Fraenkel  offers  as  proof  of  the  dependence  of  comed}^  upon 
Euripides,  although  he  says  incidentally,  "sane  e  cottidiani  sermonis 
consuetudine  mutuatus."     Naturally  I  wonder  how  he  knows  that 

1  Op.  cit.,  29  ff. 

2  Op.  cit.,  54  flf. 


133 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


Euripides  and  any  comic  poet  did  not  independently  draw  upon  the 
material  of  ordinary  speech  for  this  device;  and  I  wonder  too  just 
how  any  dramatic  poet  who  prefers  dialogue  to  monologue  can 
manage  a  bit  of  expository  narrative  without  some  such  common- 
place device  by  which  the  other  person  in  the  scene  may  be  drawn 
into  the  conversation. 

Briefly  then,  in  these  particularities  of  technique  modern  criticism 
stops  short  at  the  simple  equation  of  resemblance  with  dependence. 
But  to  estabhsh  dependence  something  more  must  be  discovered  than 
simple  devices  to  meet  conditions,  external  or  internal,  that  are 
common  to  both  types  of  drama  and  result  either  from  production 
in  the  same  sort  of  theater  with  similar  peculiarities  of  scene  setting, 
or  from  the  use  of  similar  pathetic  material. 


The  force  of  these  modern  tendencies  has  led  us  to  view  Roman 
comedy  as  a  Kunst,  either  quite  disregarding  farcical  and  burlesque 
elements  and  inorganic  structure,  or  dismissing  them  as  Roman 
intrusions  in  the  artistic  fabric  woven  under  Euripidean  influence. 
We  need  feel  under  no  obligation  to  demolish  this  theory  of 
Euripidean  influence ;  least  of  all  need  we  set  up  an  opposing  theory. 
But,  as  often  in  the  study  of  literary  genesis,  a  confession  of  ignorance 
is  a  wholesome  preliminary  to  the  discovery  of  sound  methods  and  of 
helpful  results.  Surely  we  must  admit  that  the  direct  and  indirect 
literary  antecedents  of  Hellenistic  comedy  include  a  number  of  totally 
unknown  factors.  There  is  the  transitional  period  of  Middle  comedy, 
represented  only  by  fragments;  there  is  Sicilian-Attic  comedy,  of 
whose  form  and  content  we  are  quite  ignorant;  there  are,  possibly, 
subsidiary  factors,  like  the  mime  and  fictitious  narrative  in  prose, 
which  are  chiefly  known  to  us  now  only  as  they  Mere  developed  in 
centuries  later  even  than  the  period  of  New  comedy.  Such  condi- 
tions should  promote  a  conservative  attitude  toward  any  theorizing. 
It  is  very  tempting  to  seize  upon  the  known  extant  material  of 
Euripides  and  Plautus  and  Terence  and  to  construct  a  theory  of 
dependence  that  disregards  the  unknown. 

Some  degree  of  substantial  dependence  upon  Euripides  in  particu- 
lar and  tragedy  in  general  is  made  probable  by  the  cultivation  of 


Henry  W.  Prescott 


134 


mythological  travesty  in  the  Middle  period.  The  general  proba- 
bility, however,  and  the  degree  of  dependence  are  very  difficult  to 
determine,  in  view  of  the  loss  of  comedies  from  the  transitional 
period,  and  must  be  qualified  by  two  known  facts:  (1)  that  such 
mythological  travesty  is  much  earlier  than  the  Middle  period  and 
dates  back  even  to  a  time  when  epic  and  oral  tradition  of  myth  may 
have  been  the  subjects  of  travesty;  and  (2)  that  Aristotle  seems  to 
have  found  in  Sicilian-Attic  comedy  rather  than  in  Aristophanes  or 
Euripides  the  antecedents  of  the  comedy  of  his  own  day.  In  addition 
to  the  indirect  influence  of  tragedy  through  mythological  travesty 
there  is  a  more  palpable  and  immediate  impact  of  tragedy  upon  a  few 
individual  poets,  notably  Menander  and  Philemon;  yet  the  general 
character  and  degree  of  such  influence  hardly  warrants  a  careful 
critic  in  demanding  even  of  Menander  and  Philemon  a  regular 
conformity  to  supposed  canons  of  Euripidean  art.  And  at  least  the 
current  assumption  that  Hellenistic  comedy  as  a  whole  was  monoto- 
nously regular  and  uniformly  artistic  deserves  a  thorough  overhauling. 

Mere  comparison  of  Euripides  and  New  comedy  may  lead  to 
deceptive  results.  Currents  of  thought  that  are  abnormal  in  the 
time  of  Euripides  become  commonplace  in  the  next  century;  demo- 
cratic informality  that  sets  Euripides  apart  from  Aeschylus  and 
Sophocles  is  an  inherent  quality  of  all  comedy  in  Greece ;  prosaic  and 
colloquial  idioms  that  are  idiosyncrasies  in  the  tragic  poet  are  the 
natural  stock  in  trade  of  comedy;  the  material  of  later  comedy 
is  pathetic,  as,  independently,  are  the  incidents  of  tragedy;  and, 
finally,  tragedy  and  comedy  were  produced  under  roughly  the  same 
external  conditions.  Naturally,  therefore,  there  will  be  resemblances, 
but  only  after  careful  study  may  we  accept  them  as  evidence  of  any 
direct  influence  of  tragedy  upon  comedy.  Like  many  other  types  of 
literature  in  the  Hellenistic  period,  comedy  marks  the  confluence  of 
many  different  streams,  the  crisscrossing  of  various  earher  types,  the 
constant  fusion  of  contemporary  realistic  experience  with  themes 
and  incidents  conventionalized  by  a  conservative  literary  tradition. 

A  frank  recognition  of  the  compUcated  phenomenon  would  save 
us  from  the  dangerous  use  of  simple'imiV^rSal  soLV(iio4s.:*vCbjr  present 
practice,  based  on  the  Euripidean  theory;  is  trea^cherouely  feasy^  We 
measure  all  the  plays  of  Plautus  and  Terence,  bj^.  the  M^pda;*d  of 

'.'••! : :   :    v 


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135 


The  Antecedents  of  Hellenistic  Comedy 


Menander's  Epitrepontes^  and  assume  a  uniform  procedure  in  all  the 
Greek  authors  of  the  originals  which  Plautus  and  Terence  adapted, 
blinding  ourselves  to  the  manifest  variety  in  the  twenty-six  Latin 
plays.  With  supposed  canons  of  Euripidean  art  as  a  basis  we  note 
the  inartistic  and  attribute  it  to  Roman  handling,  disregarding  both 
the  fact  that  the  whole  history-  of  Greek  comedy  naturalizes  inartistic 
irregularities  and  the  likelihood  that  the  tradition  of  the  Latin  texts 
through  the  hands  of  stage  managers  offered  every  opportunity  for 
excision,  substitution,  and  displacement. 

What  Uttle  we  know  and  the  large  amount  of  what  we  do  not 
know  should  lead  us  to  approach  the  higher  criticism  of  Roman 
comedv  with  caution  and  in  a  somewhat  pessimistic  temper.  But 
there  is  one  condition  that  prompts  a  mildly  optimistic  outlook. 
Twenty-six  plays  constitute  a  considerable  mass  of  material.  Should 
it  not  be  possible,  disregarding  all  theories,  to  analyze  these  plays, 
placing  side  by  side  like  features,  discriminating  the  unlike,  and 
thereby  ultimately  obtaining  a  helpful  synthesis  which  might  lead 
to  sounder  constructive  interpretation  ?  Legrand,  in  his  Daos,  has 
made,  a  notable  attempt  to  co-ordinate  some  important  facts,  but 
many  problems  remain  either  untouched  or,  if  handled  at  all,  only 
blurred  by  the  shadow  of  the  Euripidean  theory.  The  results  would 
not  be  startling;  many  difficulties  would  remain  unsolved;  the 
neatness  and  despatch  of  recent  dissection,  which  removes  the 
excrescences  of  Roman  botchwork  from  the  sound  body  of  Euripidean 
Kunst,  would  be  wanting;  but  we  should  at  least  be  starting  from  a 
very  proper  confession  of  ignorance  instead  of  from  a  mere  theory 
that  is  supported,  in  large  part  though  not  wholly,  by  various  weak 
hypotheses. 

University  of  Chicago 

iCf.  Wilamowitz,  Sitzb.  der.  berlin.  Akad.  (1911),  485. 


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